> you've given up the main principle If you are still looking for inconsistencies in my position, then you haven't yet accepted that I want to find compromise

> you've given up the main principle If you are still looking for inconsistencies in my position, then you haven't yet accepted that I want to find compromise solutions. I am ok with not getting everything I want. We're all walking inconsistencies anyway. That said, you are right to call me out on that and student loans because I slipped into talking points mode, which was a futile attempt at one-upsmanship. I'm never going to convince you my opinion is the right one, and vice-versa. All that matters is we both have an accurate understanding of the other's worldview so we can discover where the give and take can happen. > Why not just have a public option open to anyone, and let "the market" compete with that? My answer is just another weak talking point regarding US states that have tried that and failed. The private market in those states predictably collapsed because employers took the opportunity to dump employees onto the state run plan. Which was, of course, the goal and no one is fooled. The story ends sadly however, the state tax base couldn't support everyone dumped on the public option and virtually no one remained on the private plans to subsidize the public ones. So, the public options got scrapped. States can't run a debt like the Federal government can, so their plans have to square financially or the whole apple cart gets upturned. There's the harsh reality for ya! <mic drop> And that was the most pathetic, cherry picked story with zero details that didn't include counter-stats about the thousands of mothers and children getting health care for the first time in those states, etc etc. You sank my battleship! Did I just change your mind about single payer? Of course not, and that's fine by me. I just hope you are softening to the idea that someone who disagrees with you is not automatically an ogre, and can be well-meaning. There is far too much distrust driving factions in our society, when it is easy to find so much common ground if we just talk. My position is: the market left to do its thing produces goods/services that are cheap and plentiful. Yours is, I think: the market has no soul and there is corporate greed/corruption and the market will always have losers, so we need to intercede and level the playing field for people. Please correct me if I got you wrong. See, we both have solid points that the other must certainly agree with - the evidence is clear on both sides. What is not obvious is that one position does not negate the other. There is a right balance to be found between the two. Here's how we balance as I see it: we don't dare make policy that wrecks the market so we keep the bounty -and- we don't dare leave people to suffer and die when we have all this bounty. BOTH! Not one at the expense of the other. Cautious, tuned, scientific, numbers based, avoid failures from history, and give ourselves grace that we're doing our best and we'll never reach Utopia. > Poor people get crap healthcare while rich people get great healthcare The world is not static. Today's crap healthcare and over the counter meds are impossible, miraculous health care if you compare with what people experienced historically. Caesar lived less healthfully than the American lower class. How can we get more good stuff into more people's hands more efficiently? MRI's won't ever be as cheap as paper clips, but in twenty years TCFT hand scanner technology will make MRI's a blip in history and you will even be able to buy a consumer-grade scanner for a few hundred bucks at Walgreen's. Ok, I made that up, but hopefully you get the point that greater things are coming than the things we have now.