The Sandernistas Clear Hypocrisy

Surrealistik said:

I'm sure it would have done what it needed in order to remain competitive. The bottom line is that the public option would have almost certainly been a competitive or better alternative to most or all private providers,.

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Have you learned nothing from the co-ops? Cut off access to the guaranteed start-up capital and defund the risk corridors assumed in premium-setting and you will more likely than not kill the payer if it has no other lines of business to fall back on. The public option would've been subject to the same political sabotage that its successors, the co-ops, faced. If you have any affection for the concept (and I do), you are lucky it was not around for the past few years.

Don't you dare try and equivocate your ethically bankrupt position to mine; our stances could not be more different and we are not on the same team whatsoever.

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It probably makes you sad to hear it (you might have to share some of your smug!) but our stances are not very different. You apparently also want payment methodologies that support new business models for care delivery, even while bizarrely dismissing the concept as hopeless. You say you want universal coverage; so do I. You claim to be worried about quality; so am I.

The real difference between you and me is that I don't believe policy should made out of anger, frustration, wishful thinking, envy, self-righteousness, malice, vanity, ignorance, or cult-like devotion to any man. I think it should made out of rational analysis, careful study, and a clear-eyed accounting of the likely outcomes. I'm not looking for a ticker tape parade in my honor like some, I just want to design and implement good policy that works here and now and into the future.

This is why the hand-waving and magical thinking you use to fill in the gaps annoys me. Rhetorical BS is not policy. But this is a discussion board and if your rhetorical flights of fancy let you feel morally superior so be it.

If tackling perverse incentives and realizing these goals has been the project of you and yours over the past couple of decades, you have been miserable, abject failures.

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I didn't say "decades," I said the better part of the past decade. Since the ACA passed seven years ago.

And yes a lot of meaningful progress has made during that period, on coverage and access, on clinical quality, on sustainability and delivery system reform.

Perhaps its news to you, but in states all across the country millions of man-hours have been poured into improving our health system by people of good will who I guarantee care a lot more about improving our health system than the keyboard zealots who sneer at them. If only they'd known to use the magic button, they could've avoided all that hard work! In reality, if single-payer ever happens it will be built on the infrastructure they constructed.

I used to wonder why folks like you are so contemptuous of your allies. But then I realized they're not really your allies. They're engaged in the project that for you is more of a rhetorical device. Their efforts are outward; yours are inward, stoking those raging fires of smug self-righteousness. You bolster those holier-than-thou purist bona fides by opining from your soapbox about "concrete actions" to make the system and people's lives and care better, they're actually engaged in them without fanfare. They have to tackle the realities and challenges that you can just hand-wave away. No wonder you despise them so!

Personally I can't help but feel you have some personal investment in/exposure to the current health system to be such an ardent defender of the indefensible.

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Pointing out the challenges casual single-payer supporters refuse to acknowledge, much less grapple with, is not "defending the indefensible." Wariness of the magical thinking of the SP crowd is not an argument for the status quo.

Because people like Bernie exist, and he's created a vital movement of people with integrity who refuse to be bought in defiance of all the odds and pressure to do otherwise, while so many have become emboldened to champion and advocate truly progressive ideas in mainstream discourse. For the first time in well over a decade, barring a very brief and disappointing anomaly in Obama's case (the outcome of which was unfortunately unsurprising) back in 2008, I feel there's actually hope, however difficult to realize or remote, and it's largely thanks to him.

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So let me get this straight. Our politics are corrupt, the interests control all, and most everyone is bought and sold. But turning decision-making for our health sector over to that cabal is going to work out great because BERNIE.

Wonderful.

Greenbeard said:

Have you learned nothing from the co-ops? Cut off access to the guaranteed start-up capital and defund the risk corridors assumed in premium-setting and you will more likely than not kill the payer if it has no other lines of business to fall back on. The public option would've been subject to the same political sabotage that its successors, the co-ops, faced. If you have any affection for the concept (and I do), you are lucky it was not around for the past few years.

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As I previously stated noted, yes, political sabotage is indeed a concern which is why I don't feel it's that great a solution; Republicans can easily undermine it. However assuming that weren't the case, it would indeed prove an excellent option on its own merits (don't think for a second however, that the Senate rejected the public option on the basis of this concern; it wasn't even given a ghost of a mention at the time; moreover, GOP sabotage of a public option could be used as a political weapon against them should they choose to kill funding; y'know, as was the case with ACA).

It probably makes you sad to hear it (you might have to share some of your smug!) but our stances are not very different. You apparently also want payment methodologies that support new business models for care delivery, even while bizarrely dismissing the concept as hopeless. You say you want universal coverage; so do I. You claim to be worried about quality; so am I.

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There is an order of magnitude of difference between what you support, and what I do, and the timelines involved to get there. You propose bandaid solutions that may never, ever achieve the cost savings and outcomes of single payer, and that have generally failed to deliver. I mean seriously, you are proposing slow, incremental tweaks without fundamentally changing the overall, innately diseased and deeply flawed structure of American healthcare; how on earth is that even remotely comparable to SP with or without a private provider element?

Cont

The real difference between you and me is that I don't believe policy should made out of anger, frustration, wishful thinking, envy, self-righteousness, malice, vanity, ignorance, or cult-like devotion to any man. I think it should made out of rational analysis, careful study, and a clear-eyed accounting of the likely outcomes. I'm not looking for a ticker tape parade in my honor like some, I just want to design and implement good policy that works here and now and into the future...

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If that's what helps you sleep at night 'so be it'. Listen, I know it's fashionable for corporate Dems to paint themselves as the so-called agents of pragmatism, but the fact is that you guys have a poor track record, nevermind your recent historic electoral disaster, you're more often than not championing interests that are far less than altruistic or in defense of the common good, and people increasingly understand and realize this. For all your so-called emphasis on practical solutions you've yet to provide any that have actually tackled the problems healthcare faces, or at best, haven't proposed solutions capable of tackling these issues that can do so on a discrete and acceptable timeframe. ACA is far from the first attempt to 'bend the cost curve', though it may be perhaps the single most ambitious tweak, it is still only that, and in the end it has ultimately failed to deliver adequate results after nearly a decade.

You can project as many of your very notable vices unto me as you like, but it does nothing to change the fact that my goal is to pursue a solution that unlike your bandage, twelfth of never solutions, will actually achieve the results necessary to control costs and ensure universality. You pudder around without any real concern as to the tens of millions of lives that are left to suffer and die as a consequence of your inaction, throwing down a self-congratulatory figleaf here and there, completely oblivious to the exigency of their situation. You empathize with corporate interests above people, making sure above all else that your solutions are palatable to insurers, suppliers and providers well before constituents. Oh yes, needlessly inflated American mortality and morbidity drawn out over god knows how many years is completely acceptable so long as we don't make our donors mad, or upset bloated, cancerous industries, heaven forbid; **** you. You're definitely right about one thing though; I am angry. I'm angry at this broken, corrupt system of federal governance, this pathetically inefficient health system, and its simpering, toadie apologists that work at every turn to uphold this status quo when they're not busy making it steadily worse and more entrenched.

There is exactly nothing 'magical' about SP which is a clear, cogent and proven solution to the healthcare issues facing America; SP isn't handwaiving; UHC isn't handwaiving. The only real obstacles are political ones, but let me tell you that they are weakening considerably in recent years. If anything constitutes 'magical thinking' or 'handwaiving' it's your absurd, asinine belief that your insipid, largely toothless tweaks will ever ultimately amount to a substantive fraction of what an SP or SP hybrid system can accomplish.

I used to wonder why folks like you are so contemptuous of your allies. But then I realized they're not really your allies...

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I have no beef with people who have good intentions, but I have plenty with those who masquerade as such while simultaneously working to dash necessary approaches like Medicare for All, such as yourself.

But yes, you're absolutely right, I 100% agree; we're not allies, we're enemies. You're an enemy and an obstacle to be crushed/bypassed not unlike the GOP so long as you actively stand against obvious, clear and effective solutions long overdue in favour of bull**** corporate friendly 'good cop' bandaids, and we certainly will if you so insist. I despise people like you because you're frauds, cowards, or both.

Pointing out the challenges casual single-payer supporters refuse to acknowledge, much less grapple with, is not "defending the indefensible."...

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Except we do acknowledge the political and economic challenges and difficulties; this is why we advocate such things as phase in periods, and substantial but necessary tax increases to pay for the SP proposal. You're not wary, you just don't want to even begin to entertain SP because it disagrees with your ideological affinities.

So let me get this straight. Our politics are corrupt, the interests control all, and most everyone is bought and sold. But turning decision-making for our health sector over to that cabal is going to work out great because BERNIE.

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No, because Bernie may yet inspire enough politicos in and coming to power to divorce themselves from the corrupting influences that are currently so prevalent in the status quo of US Federal politics you disingenuous ****.

Spin it any way you like, Bernie got screwed by the Clinton campaign. She plays dirty and for keeps. As a price for keeping their jobs, since the DNC was broke, Hillary demanded complete control, unwavering loyalty, and her own people in key positions in return for financing the operation. A coup d'etat, with her junta in control. Quite the little dictator, she was. As a politician, I kind of admire her for it. Too bad she was the world's worst candidate.