• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

My Definitive Pre-Debate Rankings of the Democratic Presidential Candidates

I don't believe Warren supports M4A, which is a big difference. She signed onto the bill, but doesn't push it. Here's one article pointing out how glaring this omission is: Elizabeth Warren Has a Plan for Everything — Except Health Care

You might be right, because I do find it a source of apprehension given her shaky backing of it recently despite strong initial support. My current view is she does, but seeks to keep her position vague in an attempt not to scare off 'moderates', though I certainly have suspicions that she would not follow through; another reason I prefer Bernie to her. I refuse to be fooled again as per Obama 2008 who pathetically couldn't even deliver the public option.

Bottom line is I don't think the Bernie proposal of just making the age limit for existing Medicare start at birth is a good model. Even in relatively small countries, most 'single payer' systems have regional more or less autonomous systems. Canada has 'single payer' but it's run by each province, and they are different. We have 10 times the population (more or less) as Canada, but the Bernie proposal from what I can see is ONE system.

Yes, in Canada, the particulars are decided on a per-province basis, but ultimately they are accountable to an overriding federal minimum.

The UK NHS system by contrast is more monolithic though also having regional administrations, and it outperforms ours in terms of both cost efficiency and results, despite recent conservative efforts to underfund and privatize it.

Polls show support for M4A but IMO that isn't real. Lots of people love their insurance at work, and when you give them the numbers about how much in additional taxes they'll need to pay to get M4A, and then tell them that they'll have to 'trust' their employer to make that up with higher wages from the burden lifted from them by a single payer system, they'll balk.

The latest polls that ask whether they'd be willing to support MFA despite higher taxes have thus far come back in favour of MFA: CNN Poll: Most think the government should provide a national health insurance program - CNNPolitics

The idea that it would completely replace private insurance is less popular, but fortunately, no MFA/SP system actually does that (nor would Sanders'), so no worries.

I'd love to get to something like single payer, but I just don't think the existing "Medicare for all" proposals are feasible or well thought out, actually.

I'm not sure what's specifically unfeasible about them beyond perhaps achieving sufficient political capital given all the Libermanesque shills currently polluting both parties. As to the concept, I'm largely only leerly about the speed of rollout, though I do think there should be some level of co-pay, even if means adjusted. Having said that, I have no doubt that any MFA bill will see substantial mutation and revision well before passage and rollout.
 
Last edited:
AZ will be in play, as noted by the recent 17-State internal polling that the madman is denying. The Senate race will have huge reverse coattails. Just as big is the state legislative races, you know, the remappers.

Plus we elected Krysten Sinema, an openly bisexual woman, to the senate.......IN ARIZONA! Never thought I'd see that.

Capture.PNG


Also, Mark Kelly, the astronaut married to Gabby Giffords, is running for the other seat next year and I like his chances.
 
I heard the same thing in 2016.
Which has proven true, this presidency is a train wreck. Clinton may have been bad too, but this bad? Not a chance.
 
Arizona is turning a little more purple every year as the boomers either die off or forget how to vote. Plus after the next census it's looking like we will pick up another congressional seat which is nice.

Not all of us boomers are greedy assholes who’d rather be putinistas than Democrats. It took Democrats long enough to figure out that mcTurdle was the enemy within, not that they’ve figured out how to stop him.

When repubs write the history books for this decade, it will be the non-gop Election malfeasance beginning with REDMAP 2010 that Demwits will rue the most.

Keep an eye on the census gerrymandering in red and blue states with sizable numbers of non-citizens, such as your AZ. I look for gops in red states to reassure their non-citizens to fill out the census forms, while intimidating those in blue states.

The citizenship question, along with every other one of our divisions, is headed to the SCOTUS of mcconnell. The CD changes for 15 or so states are certainly up in the air.

Never trust anti-trumpers in name only who’d rather see him re-elected. They’re in this thread. Resistobrats they are.
 
lmfao this is hilarious

No one loves their insurance at work. We prefer it to the current alternative - which is basically not having insurance. It's expensive, and the cost goes up every year, and the benefits go down every year. The only thing that matters is that it's better than nothing. That's it.

If you have polling on that, I'd like to see it. I don't believe your characterization is accurate, but if you want to assert it as fact on a big issue like this, you and Bernie and others pushing M4A damn sure ought to be able to back it up with EVIDENCE.

Sure, if you literally LIE to people and tell them they're going to be paying more, they'll probably be a bit confused or upset, but since that's not true, it doesn't really matter. There are dozens of other countries that have similar systems already where we can compare data, and Bernie himself has explained generally how the costs should work based on his proposal.

I don't know what you mean about "LIE." It's a stone, cold and uncomfortable FACT that M4A will require MASSIVE increases in taxes. The analysis on total costs assumes that, yes, you will pay FAR more in taxes to fund some unknown share of the $1.5 trillion or so in private healthcare spending per year, plus some unknown amount on top of that for the currently uninsured. So let's assume M4A shifts $1.5 trillion to the public rolls.

We collected about $1.7 trillion in income taxes in total last year, so if we use income taxes to fund M4A, we'll roughly double income taxes from current levels. Or we collected about $1.2. trillion in payroll taxes. So a 50% increase in income taxes and and 67% increase in payroll taxes does it.

Those are massive tax increases!

The theory is that whatever was paid for by employers will be made up with higher wages, but we won't know that until it happens - it's totally speculative, a shot in the dark, a best guess. And lots of people will see their wages go up far less than the tax increases, some will see the opposite, most likely. But what you'll have to do is convince a bunch of people that a 50% income tax increase and a 67% payroll tax increase will work out better for them in the end. If you don't recognize the huge burden that puts on M4A proponents, then I won't mess around - you're just being stupid, and naive, and politically reckless. You'd have a hard time convincing ME of it, and I'm on your side. Given our bracket, I'm nearly certain I'll come out a big loser in fact. Doesn't mean I won't support it, because I would, but I will have to vote against what I expect is my selfish interest. How about the half the country that voted for Trump last time around? The half the country that nearly always votes for the GOP?

I'd also remind you that Bernie is almost literally the only candidate who is actually pushing for things that would require employers to actually pay living wages and ****, so it makes it a bit less silly when you talk about "trusting" their employers, because their employers wouldn't have a choice.

Sure they'd have a choice, unless we did away with capitalism and markets.
 
Plus we elected Krysten Sinema, an openly bisexual woman, to the senate.......IN ARIZONA! Never thought I'd see that.

Capture.PNG


Also, Mark Kelly, the astronaut married to Gabby Giffords, is running for the other seat next year and I like his chances.


I was born and raised in AZ. The damn snowbirds and Californians are ruining the state.
 
Plus we elected Krysten Sinema, an openly bisexual woman, to the senate.......IN ARIZONA! Never thought I'd see that.

Capture.PNG


Also, Mark Kelly, the astronaut married to Gabby Giffords, is running for the other seat next year and I like his chances.

Looks like Grijalva’s got some ethics problems. Good. Clears the way for Kelly. Kelly’s reverse coattails will help the Democratic potus candidate in your state.

Their were 8 gop Senators whose reverse coattails helped drag the madman’s worthless carcass across the finish line. This includes Sen. McCain, who won AZ by 328k, compared to #45 won only won AZ by 91k.
 
I don't know what you mean about "LIE." It's a stone, cold and uncomfortable FACT that M4A will require MASSIVE increases in taxes. The analysis on total costs assumes that, yes, you will pay FAR more in taxes to fund some unknown share of the $1.5 trillion or so in private healthcare spending per year, plus some unknown amount on top of that for the currently uninsured. So let's assume M4A shifts $1.5 trillion to the public rolls.

We collected about $1.7 trillion in income taxes in total last year, so if we use income taxes to fund M4A, we'll roughly double income taxes from current levels. Or we collected about $1.2. trillion in payroll taxes. So a 50% increase in income taxes and and 67% increase in payroll taxes does it.

Those are massive tax increases!

There is no way we'd end up paying the same amount as we do under the current system; half the point is to save substantial quantities of money, and literally all the precedent in the world suggests this will be the case. Even the most partisan assessments ala the Mercatus study asserts significant cost savings.
 
There is nothing more expensive than Medicare. Not even beer at baseball games. The US doesn't have the same system as the rest of the world - for various reasons.

There is no way we'd end up paying the same amount as we do under the current system; half the point is to save substantial quantities of money, and literally all the precedent in the world suggests this will be the case. Even the most partisan assessments ala the Mercatus study asserts significant cost savings.
 
If you have polling on that, I'd like to see it. I don't believe your characterization is accurate, but if you want to assert it as fact on a big issue like this, you and Bernie and others pushing M4A damn sure ought to be able to back it up with EVIDENCE.



I don't know what you mean about "LIE." It's a stone, cold and uncomfortable FACT that M4A will require MASSIVE increases in taxes. The analysis on total costs assumes that, yes, you will pay FAR more in taxes to fund some unknown share of the $1.5 trillion or so in private healthcare spending per year, plus some unknown amount on top of that for the currently uninsured. So let's assume M4A shifts $1.5 trillion to the public rolls.

We collected about $1.7 trillion in income taxes in total last year, so if we use income taxes to fund M4A, we'll roughly double income taxes from current levels. Or we collected about $1.2. trillion in payroll taxes. So a 50% increase in income taxes and and 67% increase in payroll taxes does it.

Those are massive tax increases!

The theory is that whatever was paid for by employers will be made up with higher wages, but we won't know that until it happens - it's totally speculative, a shot in the dark, a best guess. And lots of people will see their wages go up far less than the tax increases, some will see the opposite, most likely. But what you'll have to do is convince a bunch of people that a 50% income tax increase and a 67% payroll tax increase will work out better for them in the end. If you don't recognize the huge burden that puts on M4A proponents, then I won't mess around - you're just being stupid, and naive, and politically reckless. You'd have a hard time convincing ME of it, and I'm on your side. Given our bracket, I'm nearly certain I'll come out a big loser in fact. Doesn't mean I won't support it, because I would, but I will have to vote against what I expect is my selfish interest. How about the half the country that voted for Trump last time around? The half the country that nearly always votes for the GOP?



Sure they'd have a choice, unless we did away with capitalism and markets.

You realize that if we go to a M4A system, people won't be paying insurance premiums anymore, right? And that's like $1.3 trillion a year. Cool, costs covered. The only thing that changed was that money was "taxes" instead of "private insurance costs".

You're talking about "massive tax increases", but you're not actually spending anymore money, and you're getting better coverage - and most estimates actually have people spending less, so even that's not relevant.

You really need to actually read the M4A studies and listen to Bernie and people in other countries with those systems already and stop just buying the establishment bull****.
 
If you believe getting rid of Trump is more important than WHICH particular Dem gets to be President, as some of you are implying, then the best use of your vote is to vote in Republican primaries for whoever runs against Trump (if any). Despite their low chances of beating Trump (though nothing is a given!), stronger and longer Republican opposition will hurt Trump with Rep voters AND will keep Trump busy bad mouthing another Republican for a while. (Plus, historically, 1-term Presidents often had strong opposition that had weakened them before general election)

I would consider voting for a Republican who takes the nomination from Trump.
 
I would consider voting for a Republican who takes the nomination from Trump.

I'd vote for Bill Weld over Biden, probably. He's not going to get the nomination, though. The GOP has already sworn on Trump.
 
#1 Any human being who is nominated for the Democratic Party. Whether its Sanders, or Biden, or Gabbard, or Yang, or Warren, or Buttigieg, or Oprah, or Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. They have my vote. Any direction is better than the one we are going under Trump's "leadership." My viewpoint will likely evolve to support that candidate which I think will be most successful in the General Election. Ideological purity can take secondary importance this around, victory MUST be achieved, so my viewpoint will eventually gravitate to whom I view has the best shot against Trump. I don't think that can be established yet, even with Biden polling the best at present.


Great news for you!

All polls indicate that "any human being" will beat President Trump.

Even the pro-Trump Drudge Report admits that the swing states are turning their backs on him.


So just be patient: Time flies. (As a senior citizen, I can attest to that!)


November, 2020, will be here before you can believe it.


What a wonderful night of celebration it will be for you.


Congratulations!
 
There is no way we'd end up paying the same amount as we do under the current system; half the point is to save substantial quantities of money, and literally all the precedent in the world suggests this will be the case. Even the most partisan assessments ala the Mercatus study asserts significant cost savings.

I agree, but that doesn't change the HUGE problem that going from private contributions funding most under-65 healthcare to public won't require massive tax increases. It's just a fact. And you can promise people that they'll save money in the end, and for lots that will be true, and for many people it will be false and their taxes will go up far more than the new benefits. That's in part part of the appeal - you'll being in 20 million uninsured and lots of people will pay for that. That means tax increases to fund new benefits, which means all those people will see net tax increases far in excesss of benefits. You can say to yourself it will only affect the rich, but it's too big a number to not reach well down into the upper middle class, at least, and if payroll taxes on a bunch of people.
 
Great news for you!

All polls indicate that "any human being" will beat President Trump.

Even the pro-Trump Drudge Report admits that the swing states are turning their backs on him.


So just be patient: Time flies. (As a senior citizen, I can attest to that!)


November, 2020, will be here before you can believe it.


What a wonderful night of celebration it will be for you.


Congratulations!
Polls don't indicate the future, I'm not going to kick back and relax.
 
You realize that if we go to a M4A system, people won't be paying insurance premiums anymore, right? And that's like $1.3 trillion a year. Cool, costs covered. The only thing that changed was that money was "taxes" instead of "private insurance costs".

You're talking about "massive tax increases", but you're not actually spending anymore money, and you're getting better coverage - and most estimates actually have people spending less, so even that's not relevant.

You really need to actually read the M4A studies and listen to Bernie and people in other countries with those systems already and stop just buying the establishment bull****.

I've read the studies and recognized all that in my response. Where you're going wrong is that there is or even can be this nice, neat exchange of private insurance premiums, a big part of pay for most people with good jobs, and then their taxes go up but their pay increases because employer passed along to them the savings it got from no longer having to fund health insurance. That will be imperfect, with 10s of millions of LOSERS. If you don't think the GOP will spend massive sums pointing that out, you're delusional, and the problem is for many people those ads will be CORRECT because there have to be 10s of millions of losers versus the status quo to make single payer work.

It's a mistake and a serious one to dismiss those real concerns by pretending those of us who point it out are just peddling "establishment bull****." I'm not peddling anyone's talking points, but pointing out FACTS about how this massive transition will work, and that it will be incredibly disruptive, and there WILL BE lots of big losers if it happens.

If single payer saves, let's say $300 billion per year, guess what? That's $300 billion in lost wages, lost jobs, lost profits, closed clinics, closed hospitals. Stock prices will go down, and more. That's a lot of losers that will fight like hell against a change that causes them to get fired and lose their jobs. You don't have to trust me to know that's inevitable, just think about it for 5 minutes. And if all you have in response is "establishment bull****!!" then single payer is toast. They will be real jobs lost, lots of them. Lying to people just makes the cause worse, and if you don't have something better than that, you will be lying, or ignorantly repeating talking points. One or the other.
 
I've read the studies and recognized all that in my response. Where you're going wrong is that there is or even can be this nice, neat exchange of private insurance premiums, a big part of pay for most people with good jobs, and then their taxes go up but their pay increases because employer passed along to them the savings it got from no longer having to fund health insurance. That will be imperfect, with 10s of millions of LOSERS. If you don't think the GOP will spend massive sums pointing that out, you're delusional, and the problem is for many people those ads will be CORRECT because there have to be 10s of millions of losers versus the status quo to make single payer work.

It's a mistake and a serious one to dismiss those real concerns by pretending those of us who point it out are just peddling "establishment bull****." I'm not peddling anyone's talking points, but pointing out FACTS about how this massive transition will work, and that it will be incredibly disruptive, and there WILL BE lots of big losers if it happens.

If single payer saves, let's say $300 billion per year, guess what? That's $300 billion in lost wages, lost jobs, lost profits, closed clinics, closed hospitals. Stock prices will go down, and more. That's a lot of losers that will fight like hell against a change that causes them to get fired and lose their jobs. You don't have to trust me to know that's inevitable, just think about it for 5 minutes. And if all you have in response is "establishment bull****!!" then single payer is toast. They will be real jobs lost, lots of them. Lying to people just makes the cause worse, and if you don't have something better than that, you will be lying, or ignorantly repeating talking points. One or the other.

Another mistake is in thinking that the presidency is a dictatorship. If Bernie rolls to victory we will not have MFA. It just ain't happinin. The Socialists are delusional.
 
Another mistake is in thinking that the presidency is a dictatorship. If Bernie rolls to victory we will not have MFA. It just ain't happinin. The Socialists are delusional.

Yes, I agree with that. Except for the "delusional" part. "Conservatives" are also delusional in their own way. I'd use the term 'unrealistic' or 'idealists.'

During the Obama years people called that the Green Lantern theory of the presidency, which meant by force of will any president should be able to get Congress to do his bidding, such to as in this case to remake a $16 trillion industry, and in the meantime wipe out several insurance companies with market caps collectively totaling $100s of billions, just for starters.

I don't have any problem at all with Bernie and a bunch of others supporting MFA because pushing that sets the boundaries of what is acceptable, and what should be 'acceptable' is a system that insures basically everyone. But there are a couple dozen paths to get there, including WITH private insurance, employer based insurance for workers, and a larger public system. I don't think a good strategy is to run on "Let's tinker around the edges and bring the uninsured rate down by 3.4% from current levels!!!" What's frustrating is the idea that it's all or nothing, failure, sell out! etc.

Look at the ACA. It was a huge change, and the GOP ran against it successfully for a decade, and lots of it was dismantled. But even that change that left most of our system intact faced massive opposition, and MFA will get orders of magnitude more opposition. We can't will that away - it's real and lots of it is in fact rational if you look at it from the perspective of those who will see their taxes go way, way up without a corresponding increase in benefits, who will see their companies implode, who will see pay go down, lots of jobs lost, etc......
 
#6: Cory Booker and everyone else. While I invite the remaining 16 candidates to continue running and seek to influence the platform, I think pretty much all of them have no chance. Sorry, winning really matters to my analysis.

#4: Bernie Sanders. I was a Bernie Congressional delegate in the last Primary, but that was chiefly because of my concerns regarding Hillary Clinton. I was also less critical of Democratic Socialism, but I think a Bernie Primary victory could frame the General Election as a Socialism versus Capitalism Primary, and my knowledge of the American National Character causes me to be skeptical of a victory on this front.

#4: Joe Biden. Veep Biden has all kinds of problems for me as a candidate, but he is well known, associated with Obama (whom a lot of people love), and most importantly polling well (though increasingly not so well). I would begrudgingly support Joe if he were nominated, but I doubt I will end up supporting him in the primary.

#3: Kamala Harris. I think the Senator is one of the three remaining candidates able to scoop up Biden's vote. She seems to me like she would be a good president, though I would like to see her performance on the debate stage and see where precisely she lands in certain policy areas.

#2 Mayor Pete and Elizabeth Warren. At the top I have the two people who I think could most likely topple Biden for the kind of broader canopy candidate for the Democratic Party. I honestly think Pete's homosexuality may make him unable to run at the top of a ticket in a must win election, though I think perhaps if he were to be a Vice President for Warren I think this could be formidable. Obviously, the "Pocahontas" fiasco will haunt, but it wasn't fatal and she is growing on the basis of substance. I think such a ticket could also satisfy both wings of the Party to a large extent, but I think this depends on Biden falling on his face.

#1 Any human being who is nominated for the Democratic Party. Whether its Sanders, or Biden, or Gabbard, or Yang, or Warren, or Buttigieg, or Oprah, or Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. They have my vote. Any direction is better than the one we are going under Trump's "leadership." My viewpoint will likely evolve to support that candidate which I think will be most successful in the General Election. Ideological purity can take secondary importance this around, victory MUST be achieved, so my viewpoint will eventually gravitate to whom I view has the best shot against Trump. I don't think that can be established yet, even with Biden polling the best at present.

As good a ranking as any. I think the two tired old white guys will fade as we go on and fresher, more interesting voices will take their place. Spending the next year re-litigating votes from 30 years ago by two past-their-prime politicians is a singularly boring prospect.
 
As good a ranking as any. I think the two tired old white guys will fade as we go on and fresher, more interesting voices will take their place. Spending the next year re-litigating votes from 30 years ago by two past-their-prime politicians is a singularly boring prospect.
It would have been more simple if Biden stayed out, given the early lead it would be hard for him to turn that down. We will see, I think Biden will only drop out if the groping problem for him gets worse.
 
Yes, I agree with that. Except for the "delusional" part. "Conservatives" are also delusional in their own way. I'd use the term 'unrealistic' or 'idealists.'

During the Obama years people called that the Green Lantern theory of the presidency, which meant by force of will any president should be able to get Congress to do his bidding, such to as in this case to remake a $16 trillion industry, and in the meantime wipe out several insurance companies with market caps collectively totaling $100s of billions, just for starters.

I don't have any problem at all with Bernie and a bunch of others supporting MFA because pushing that sets the boundaries of what is acceptable, and what should be 'acceptable' is a system that insures basically everyone. But there are a couple dozen paths to get there, including WITH private insurance, employer based insurance for workers, and a larger public system. I don't think a good strategy is to run on "Let's tinker around the edges and bring the uninsured rate down by 3.4% from current levels!!!" What's frustrating is the idea that it's all or nothing, failure, sell out! etc.

Look at the ACA. It was a huge change, and the GOP ran against it successfully for a decade, and lots of it was dismantled. But even that change that left most of our system intact faced massive opposition, and MFA will get orders of magnitude more opposition. We can't will that away - it's real and lots of it is in fact rational if you look at it from the perspective of those who will see their taxes go way, way up without a corresponding increase in benefits, who will see their companies implode, who will see pay go down, lots of jobs lost, etc......

The left should have left everyone the hell alone and concentrated on the 10%-20% uninsured. Instead they ****ed it up for everyone and arrogantly thought they would be in power forever and would be able to fix any glitches. And, here we go again, with the MFA'rs wanting to **** it up for everyone.
 
Back
Top Bottom