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I'm for single payer but it will never happen until Democrats get the White House and congress. Paul Ryan is planning on privatizing Medicare asap
by woofyman 10y ago
I'm for single payer but it will never happen until Democrats get the White House and congress. Paul Ryan is planning on privatizing Medicare asap
- ScottBurson 10y agoI don't know that Paul Ryan's opinion matters too much at this point. I also am not sure the Democrats could do single-payer even if they had the White House and Congress. They take plenty of money from the special interests too.
- wernercd 10y agoThe democrats couldn't do it when they had WH and Congress... they had to go with Plan B - "Obamacare". Personally, I believe that Plan B was written to fail. Government creates problems. How do you solve the problem? More government. Obamacare, imho, was created as the groundwork for single payer. I just don't think they expected it to fail so hard and so fast. I have no faith in single payer... for example, look at the VA. Months of wait times for those who need the help... while those at the top get lavish bonuses.
- ubernostrum 10y agoSingle payer works well in many places other than the US. People on private insurance plans in the US die or suffer while waiting for care their plans allegedly offer, while executives of those private insurance companies get "lavish bonuses".
- AznHisoka 10y agothe people who die, i assume are the ones that cant afford that care and need to knoww beforehand its going to be completely covered?
- ubernostrum 10y agoPlenty of things require referrals and authorizations and those can be processed at a glacial pace, yes.
- MichaelBurge 10y agoThe US is the wrong level of government for a healthcare system. If a place like California wanted to offer free healthcare to its residents, that's fine, but the federal government should only be responsible for war, negotiating trade deals, handling immigration, and other external issues. Keep in mind that "many other places" are smaller than a single US state.
- ubernostrum 10y agoYour view went out of fashion with the Articles of Confederation; the ultra-limited "only for a handful of external-facing issues" federal government was an abject failure.
- pnutjam 10y agoConsider that Californian's pay about $290 Billion to the Feds and the state collects about $70 billion. Do other small countries pay most of their taxes to a larger central organization? Much of that Federal money gets shunted to other states.
- MichaelBurge 10y agoFor consistency, I also support repealing the 16th amendment and removing the interstate commerce clause. Then California would have more direct control over its citizens' tax money.
- ubernostrum 10y agoWhy stop there? You seem to want not a nation of 50 states, but 50 completely independently sovereign nations which will somehow miraculously also agree to cooperate on the handful of things that you personally feel they should. This has been tried, and failed, and was replaced with the Constitution we have now.
- grzm 10y agoAt one time it was more common to use "These United States of America" and "the United States are …" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States#Etymology
- umutisik 10y agoThe public option was removed from the eventual Affordable Care Act when it passed in 2010. The Democrats did have both houses of congress and the white house at the time, but that part of the law was brought down by a filibuster threat from a small group of 'blue dog' democrats. Had it passed, it would surely have been a trojan horse for universal coverage.
- TheCoelacanth 10y agoThe public option had the support of all 59 Democrats. It was Lieberman, an Independent who often voted with the Democrats, who got the public option removed.