2018 Democrats thread

[southsider2k5]

I just hit my five year mark, and now I am up to 20 days a year, plus 7 sick/personal days.

[ptatc]

32 minutes ago, Brian said:

40 hours is 5 days for us.

So they do allow you to build your PTO past the end of the year. It's just limited to 40 hours. I just misread it when you said they don't allow you to build past the end of the year.

Edited August 9, 2018 by ptatc

[Brian]

30 minutes ago, ptatc said:

So they do allow you to build your PTO past the end of the year. It's just limited to 40 hours. I just misread it when you said they don't allow you to build past the end of the year.

Exactly. So if I have 60 hours, I have to use 20 instead of carrying them over. And we can't cash them in. Dec can get busy because so many people take days off instead of planning ahead and spreading it out.

[ptatc]

6 hours ago, Brian said:

Exactly. So if I have 60 hours, I have to use 20 instead of carrying them over. And we can't cash them in. Dec can get busy because so many people take days off instead of planning ahead and spreading it out.

No doubt this happens where my wife works as well. Although i dont mind that rule because as someone ekse said workers do better if they have some time off. This way besides weekends they are forced to take the 20 hours. Teaching at a university we don't get vacation days but the sick days accrue at a decent rate and never expire. 

Edited August 9, 2018 by ptatc

[LittleHurt05]

On 8/8/2018 at 9:32 AM, GoSox05 said:

Norway is the happiest country in the world.  A large reason for that is because of things in America that are seen as "easy path" or "radical".

It's really pretty crazy that people in Norway are that happy because most of the year it has similar weather as the planet Hoth.

Norway has 50x less people and a stricter immigration policy. 

[Dam8610]

47 minutes ago, LittleHurt05 said:

Norway has 50x less people and a stricter immigration policy. 

That doesn't mean that a required living wage and free healthcare and education for all wouldn't make people happier here.

Also, another thing I've noticed, why doesn't anyone ever complain about the affordability of giving billions of dollars in contracts to defense contractors or billions of dollars in subsidies to big oil?

[LittleHurt05]

29 minutes ago, Dam8610 said:

That doesn't mean that a required living wage and free healthcare and education for all wouldn't make people happier here.

Also, another thing I've noticed, why doesn't anyone ever complain about the affordability of giving billions of dollars in contracts to defense contractors or billions of dollars in subsidies to big oil?

I never said it wouldn't make people happy. I'm just saying it's a whole lot easier to accomplish in a much smaller homogeneous population.

[Dam8610]

1 hour ago, LittleHurt05 said:

I never said it wouldn't make people happy. I'm just saying it's a whole lot easier to accomplish in a much smaller homogeneous population.

I disagree. We have a $710 billion defense budget and a hidden tax of $2 trillion+ known as health insurance premiums that doesn't show up in a government budget, as well as about $1.5 trillion in government insurance spending. By eliminating health insurance and cutting the defense budget by 25%, which would still have us spending more on defense than the next 10 countries combined, we could implement a federal jobs guarantee with a minimum wage of $15/hr, have a completely free healthcare system, and offer free college to all Americans. It's not that hard to implement.

[ptatc]

4 hours ago, Dam8610 said:

That doesn't mean that a required living wage and free healthcare and education for all wouldn't make people happier here.

Also, another thing I've noticed, why doesn't anyone ever complain about the affordability of giving billions of dollars in contracts to defense contractors or billions of dollars in subsidies to big oil?

But it does make it much more difficult to finance and run effectively.

Edited August 10, 2018 by ptatc

[ptatc]

2 hours ago, Dam8610 said:

I disagree. We have a $710 billion defense budget and a hidden tax of $2 trillion+ known as health insurance premiums that doesn't show up in a government budget, as well as about $1.5 trillion in government insurance spending. By eliminating health insurance and cutting the defense budget by 25%, which would still have us spending more on defense than the next 10 countries combined, we could implement a federal jobs guarantee with a minimum wage of $15/hr, have a completely free healthcare system, and offer free college to all Americans. It's not that hard to implement.

No one group should have that much power. The government can't currently run an effect and efficient VA system for just vets or a medicare system without rampant fraud. There is no way they could run a healthcare system for everyone.

[Dam8610]

4 hours ago, ptatc said:

But it does make it much more difficult to finance and run effectively.

Health insurance premiums and companies? Absolutely they make it more difficult to finance and run our healthcare system efficiently. That's one of the many reasons they need to be done away with, at least as the primary funding source for our system.

3 hours ago, ptatc said:

No one group should have that much power. The government can't currently run an effect and efficient VA system for just vets or a medicare system without rampant fraud. There is no way they could run a healthcare system for everyone.

But you just said the current system is broken. What do we do when we get rid of the health insurance companies? SOMETHING will have to replace them.

Also, the population of Europe is nearly double that of the United States, and every country in Europe provides free health care to its citizens. So the whole "too big to implement" argument doesn't work. I agree that fraud and waste are huge problems in the current system, which is why transparency and broad enforcement power to regulators would be absolutely necessary in the implementation of a national single payer healthcare system.

[ptatc]

2 hours ago, Dam8610 said:

Health insurance premiums and companies? Absolutely they make it more difficult to finance and run our healthcare system efficiently. That's one of the many reasons they need to be done away with, at least as the primary funding source for our system.

But you just said the current system is broken. What do we do when we get rid of the health insurance companies? SOMETHING will have to replace them.

Also, the population of Europe is nearly double that of the United States, and every country in Europe provides free health care to its citizens. So the whole "too big to implement" argument doesn't work. I agree that fraud and waste are huge problems in the current system, which is why transparency and broad enforcement power to regulators would be absolutely necessary in the implementation of a national single payer healthcare system.

I guess I didn't state my point clearly. The large population of the US makes it difficult to finance and run efficiently, especially with the number of people who wouldn't pay into the system but would receive benefits. These are issues that the European countries dont have. 

Europe may have a larger population but the individual countries do not. The individual countries finance the healthcare system, Europe does not. Even if you takes this into consideration there would be a big quality drop off. For example, someone comes into my clinic for back pain. If will get somewhere between 10-12 visits to work with them, depending on the insurance company, and can sometimes request more. The patient will need to pay A co-pay in most cases. A friend of mine in France, his patients will pay nothing, its totally government funded. However he get 8 visits per year per ussue. This becomes an even bigger issue when you have a permanent issues such as a stroke.

Regardless of these issues as I stated, I wouldn't trust the government who can't perfectly run a VA system or a medicare system, which are much smaller, to be able to effectively run a universal healthcare system. Most of the politicians are either too corrupt, self-serving or inept

[Balta1701]

4 minutes ago, ptatc said:

I guess I didn't state my point clearly. The large population of the US makes it difficult to finance and run efficiently, especially with the number of people who wouldn't pay into the system but would receive benefits. These are issues that the European countries dont have. 

Europe may have a larger population but the individual countries do not. The individual countries finance the healthcare system, Europe does not. Even if you takes this into consideration there would be a big quality drop off. For example, someone comes into my clinic for back pain. If will get somewhere between 10-12 visits to work with them, depending on the insurance company, and can sometimes request more. The patient will need to pay A co-pay in most cases. A friend of mine in France, his patients will pay nothing, its totally government funded. However he get 8 visits per year per ussue. This becomes an even bigger issue when you have a permanent issues such as a stroke.

Regardless of these issues as I stated, I wouldn't trust the government who can't perfectly run a VA system or a medicare system, which are much smaller, to be able to effectively run a universal healthcare system. Most of the politicians are either too corrupt, self-serving or inept

So what happens to the people who have back pain and can't afford the co-pay, or a stroke and are uninsured?

[GoSox05]

Private insurance works so well, we have to keep coming up with new government programs to supplement it, because otherwise it would be an absolute disaster. 

 

[Dam8610]

1 hour ago, ptatc said:

I guess I didn't state my point clearly. The large population of the US makes it difficult to finance and run efficiently, especially with the number of people who wouldn't pay into the system but would receive benefits. These are issues that the European countries dont have. 

Europe may have a larger population but the individual countries do not. The individual countries finance the healthcare system, Europe does not. Even if you takes this into consideration there would be a big quality drop off. For example, someone comes into my clinic for back pain. If will get somewhere between 10-12 visits to work with them, depending on the insurance company, and can sometimes request more. The patient will need to pay A co-pay in most cases. A friend of mine in France, his patients will pay nothing, its totally government funded. However he get 8 visits per year per ussue. This becomes an even bigger issue when you have a permanent issues such as a stroke.

Regardless of these issues as I stated, I wouldn't trust the government who can't perfectly run a VA system or a medicare system, which are much smaller, to be able to effectively run a universal healthcare system. Most of the politicians are either too corrupt, self-serving or inept

You know people on Medicaid receive benefits without paying into the system right now, and that program accounts for about 20% of medical spending in the US today, right? That number won't increase by switching to single payer, and might actually go down because of the tax increase that will be required (even though it would likely net most people more money due to the disappearing health insurance premium).

I intentionally picked all of Europe for two reasons: 1) Diffuse the "we're too big" argument and 2) Show that one way to run this is a state by state model (though not my preferred method). If you look at Europe as a whole, it's a continent that has several countries that for modeling purposes could be compared to states in our country. When you think about it like that, it becomes much easier to see how a single payer system could functionally be implemented in the United States.

Finally, in our current system, we are trusting private health insurance companies to not operate with a profit motive when the supreme court has outright told them that they are required to maximize shareholder value. That's insane. Further, we're following Einstein's definition of insanity by continuing to do it rather than replace the system with something more reasonable. You may think all the politicians are corrupt, and they may be, but at least the government isn't required to operate with a profit motive, and the people who would be making the decisions regarding how the money is spent would not be politicians.

Edited August 10, 2018 by Dam8610

[Jenksismyhero]

17 minutes ago, Dam8610 said:

You know people on Medicaid receive benefits without paying into the system right now, and that program accounts for about 20% of medical spending in the US today, right? That number won't increase by switching to single payer, and might actually go down because of the tax increase that will be required (even though it would likely net most people more money due to the disappearing health insurance premium).

I intentionally picked all of Europe for two reasons: 1) Diffuse the "we're too big" argument and 2) Show that one way to run this is a state by state model (though not my preferred method). If you look at Europe as a whole, it's a continent that has several countries that for modeling purposes could be compared to states in our country. When you think about it like that, it becomes much easier to see how a single payer system could functionally be implemented in the United States.

Finally, in our current system, we are trusting private health insurance companies to not operate with a profit motive when the supreme court has outright told them that they are required to maximize shareholder value. That's insane. Further, we're following Einstein's definition of insanity by continuing to do it rather than replace the system with something more reasonable. You may think all the politicians are corrupt, and they may be, but at least the government isn't required to operate with a profit motive, and the people who would be making the decisions regarding how the money is spent would not be politicians.

No, even worse, they'd be the ones determining how much the system gets in funding. So, when our shitty, partisan, uncompromising Congress wants to hold the country hostage and/or just decide to slash funding, everyone suffers and there's no recourse. 

You all are absolutely crazy to think that the federal government of this country would be able to properly run that kind of system. There is no comparison to any other country. We're our own unique society/government. And we already have evidence that our government can't properly run a system for 8-9 million vets, let alone the rest of the 300-350 million population.

[GoSox05]

I think the real problem is there is enough people in this country that health insurance and their work provides it.  They've had no real problems and they really don't give a shit if some people don't have it and could possibly go bankrupt because of expensive care or if they don't have proper access and they die.  It's the old, I got mine, fuck you. 

Luckily that general thought process in this country is changing.  Mostly do to the fact that private insurance is so bad that it effects almost everyone negatively.

Edited August 10, 2018 by GoSox05

[Jenksismyhero]

8 minutes ago, GoSox05 said:

I think the real problem is there is enough people in this country that health insurance and their work provides it.  They've had no real problems and they really don't give a shit if some people don't have it and could possibly go bankrupt because of expensive care or if they don't have proper access and they die.  It's the old, I got mine, fuck you. 

Luckily that general thought process in this country is changing.  Mostly do to the fact that private insurance is so bad that it effects almost everyone negatively.

Nah, it's not "i got mine, fuck you," it's, "I got mine, as does most of the country, and it makes little sense to screw all of us to benefit a few. There are changes that can and should be made, but a universal system run by our inefficient, corrupt government is not one of them." 

 

[Balta1701]

16 minutes ago, Jenksismyhero said:

Nah, it's not "i got mine, fuck you," it's, "I got mine, as does most of the country, and it makes little sense to screw all of us to benefit a few. There are changes that can and should be made, but a universal system run by our inefficient, corrupt government is not one of them." 

 

And instead we get the inefficient, corrupt insurance industry, and a whole lot fewer people covered, and a whole lot higher prices than anyone else pays anywhere. 

This is "Sure I got shot in the head, but at least I didn't scratch my knee while falling".

[Jenksismyhero]

All reasons to adjust the system, not scrap it all together for something worse.

[GoSox05]

8 minutes ago, Jenksismyhero said:

All reasons to adjust the system, not scrap it all together for something worse.

Didn't Obama just try and do that?  It made some things better and some stuff worse and Republicans just came it and blew it up.  They were able to do so because it didn't do enough things well and still left the private insurance companies in charge and people hate them.

Republicans have full control of the government and they won't do anything to solve it.  All they will do is make it even more "free" market based so we end up with junk insurance.  Congrats your insurance now covers two aspirin!

[ptatc]

3 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

So what happens to the people who have back pain and can't afford the co-pay, or a stroke and are uninsured?

They either go private or don't get the help they need.

[ptatc]

1 hour ago, Dam8610 said:

You know people on Medicaid receive benefits without paying into the system right now, and that program accounts for about 20% of medical spending in the US today, right? That number won't increase by switching to single payer, and might actually go down because of the tax increase that will be required (even though it would likely net most people more money due to the disappearing health insurance premium).

I intentionally picked all of Europe for two reasons: 1) Diffuse the "we're too big" argument and 2) Show that one way to run this is a state by state model (though not my preferred method). If you look at Europe as a whole, it's a continent that has several countries that for modeling purposes could be compared to states in our country. When you think about it like that, it becomes much easier to see how a single payer system could functionally be implemented in the United States.

Finally, in our current system, we are trusting private health insurance companies to not operate with a profit motive when the supreme court has outright told them that they are required to maximize shareholder value. That's insane. Further, we're following Einstein's definition of insanity by continuing to do it rather than replace the system with something more reasonable. You may think all the politicians are corrupt, and they may be, but at least the government isn't required to operate with a profit motive, and the people who would be making the decisions regarding how the money is spent would not be politicians.

Medicaid is much different than medicare. No one would be happy if all the got was medicare, it's very restrictive.

You can't diffuse the "we're too big argument as it's the primary issue. It would need to be each state being responsible for their own healthcare system if you want to compare it to Europe. Even then, many of our states have a larger population than many European countries.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with private companies looking for a profit. That's what they are in business for. Most companies offer a variety of plans. Pick the ones you like but it can cost you. Is it a perfect system, no. But it's still better than many, but it is costly.

Insurance companies do not make much profit from insurance premiums because of the competition. Where they make their money is investing that premium. My wife is an AVP for a North American division of a global insurance company. The amount of money she deals with on a daily basis is astounding but it's from investing, this is where the profit comes from.

Just based on the VA and Medicare,I still don't think our government could effectively run something this large.

[StrangeSox]

Guess which party!

 

I forget how many open Nazis are running as Republicans this cycle, it's hard to keep track.

[Dam8610]

42 minutes ago, ptatc said:

They either go private or don't get the help they need.

And you don't see that as a problem? You're literally okay with letting someone die needlessly so you don't have to be uncomfortable with who runs the healthcare system or having to pay a little more in taxes? That's a very cruel and inhumane viewpoint.

25 minutes ago, ptatc said:

Medicaid is much different than medicare. No one would be happy if all the got was medicare, it's very restrictive.

You can't diffuse the "we're too big argument as it's the primary issue. It would need to be each state being responsible for their own healthcare system if you want to compare it to Europe. Even then, many of our states have a larger population than many European countries.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with private companies looking for a profit. That's what they are in business for. Most companies offer a variety of plans. Pick the ones you like but it can cost you. Is it a perfect system, no. But it's still better than many, but it is costly.

Insurance companies do not make much profit from insurance premiums because of the competition. Where they make their money is investing that premium. My wife is an AVP for a North American division of a global insurance company. The amount of money she deals with on a daily basis is astounding but it's from investing, this is where the profit comes from.

Just based on the VA and Medicare,I still don't think our government could effectively run something this large.

I know people wouldn't be happy with Medicare, but even that would be better than the current system. Hospitals would be cheaper for everyone if they didn't have to negotiate with the insurance companies, procedures were mostly set pricing, and the hospital knew they were getting a minimum of 80% of the bill. You want to talk about cutting administrative waste, that would be a HUGE cut to administrative waste.

If 700 million people (underestimating intentionally) in Europe can be covered by single payer systems, 400 million people (overestimating intentionally) in America being "too big to cover" under a single payer system is not a valid argument.

There is something wrong with a private company seeking profit when their method of ensuring that profit is to deny life saving or bettering treatment to a person because it would be too costly, despite the fact that that person paid their premiums timely for years, which is the modus operandi of the health insurance industry.

It wasn't until 8 years ago that health insurance companies were required to cover people with conditions they didn't like to cover and had to pay a minimum percentage of premiums to cover medical services or refund the difference. So you can say they make their profit from investments, but the mandated refund checks people got after the Affordable Care Act went into effect tell a different story.

Your opinion on the government's ability to handle it has been noted. I disagree with you and think the people in charge now are even more ill-equipped based on the results they've gotten, that being that we have the most expensive healthcare system in the world on a per capita basis, and our average health outcomes are nowhere near the top of the world. If this were baseball, our healthcare system would be present day Albert Pujols, overpaid for bad results.