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Unfortunately, I think it's more likely that no matter how bad private healthcare gets, people in the deep red states mentioned in the article will just assume

Unfortunately, I think it's more likely that no matter how bad private healthcare gets, people in the deep red states mentioned in the article will just assume that socialized healthcare would be even worse and dig in their heels all the more out of redoubled fear of losing what little they have left.

vidanay 7y ago
They will demand that the government "do something" (aka, a bail-out) whilst simultaneously complaining about their taxes.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  Don’t forget about subsidies and bailouts that are structured differently, but effectively that: - cheap loans to terrible creditors that nobody else in the world would loan to - not allowing governments to negotiate prices, even when they’re the buyer (drug prices) - extra taxes, errr, tariffs, on their competitors - exemptions from those same tariffs when its their input - access to cheaper labour pools that no small business could possibly do the paper work for (various visas)
UncleEntity 7y ago
Or... It could have been the plan all along to engineer a "market failure" so these people have no choice but to accept socialized healthcare even if they're vehemently opposed to it.
- slowmovintarget 7y ago
  This shouldn't be downvoted, because this was was what the ACA was meant to do. Exacerbate the cost problem (which it has done), restrict doctor-run hospitals (which it does), and lead to a problem where the "solution" is a single-payer system so that 11% of the economy (back then), could be "captured". Many democrats thought (and said so) that there was a huge problem of all this money moving around without government control. The first attempt, which failed badly under Hillary Clinton's leadership during her time as First Lady, failed because it tried to do everything at once. It could therefore be seen as a massive power-grab. The ACA on the other hand, delivered an incremental approach that included lots of things people wanted: ignoring pre-existing conditions, broadening coverage. But it also did things like say there could be no new doctor-run hospitals, and existing ones could not add beds. Doctor-run hospitals, at the time, were actually a success of the free market in health care. Their outcomes in terms of patient recovery and survival rates were higher than state run hospitals. They were a direct threat to the idea that the government should run health care. The ACA also set the stage for the failure of private medical insurance. We're in limbo on that score, but the needle has moved toward that failure.
  - guntars 7y ago
    And now you’re being downvoted because all of this is unsourced speculation and people here don’t really care for that.
    - ryguytilidie 7y ago
      Also because he is literally blaming Hillary Clinton for stuff that happened while she was first lady. I swear modern Republicanism is just agreeing with Donald Trump and blaming anything that goes wrong on Hillary or Obama.
      - slowmovintarget 7y ago
        Hillary Clinton led the effort to reform health care during her husband's first term in office [1]. I am literally claiming that Hillary did things that she actually did. I'm sorry you weren't aware of history. That Hillary led this effort was actually noteworthy less for its failure and more for the fact that this was the first time a First Lady took a publicly visible hand in core policy-making. I don't think Donald Trump is truly fit to be president, and I don't think the modern Republican party represents my views. Nor do I think Hillary Clinton was a suitable choice either. But disagreeing with the modern Democrat party is often met with derision, even if it is reasoned objection. I actually remember the political discourse during President Clinton's first term, having been part of it back then. I remember the speeches Hillary Clinton gave as chair of the task force, including the notion that it was tragedy to allow so much of the economy to flow outside the purview of government. The notion of regulatory capture is not new [2]. It is my opinion that the purpose of the ACA was to lead to single-payer. It was the kind of boiled-frog strategy that Democrat party leaders had been using successfully for decades at the point ACA came a along. The restrictions on doctor-owned hospitals are part of the law [3]. That the law would cause increased costs and dramatic deficits was predicted by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) [4, 5]. The way I formed my opinion was taking all of this into account, including the model Hillary's task force put forth in the 90s as being what Democrats actually wanted. It is a reasonable opinion that if the ACA didn't deliver all of the things from the original plan, yet it opened up many unsolved problems, that the intent was to "continue reform" and make the "natural solution" a single-payer system. I do wish we could have discussion without every comment on politics becoming a college paper. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan_of_1993 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan_of_19... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture [3] https://www.cms.gov/medicare/fraud-and-abuse/physicianselfreferral/physician_owned_hospitals.html https://www.cms.gov/medicare/fraud-and-abuse/physicianselfre... [4] https://www.cbo.gov/topics/health-care/affordable-care-act https://www.cbo.gov/topics/health-care/affordable-care-act [5] https://www.factcheck.org/2017/03/cbos-obamacare-predictions-how-accurate/ https://www.factcheck.org/2017/03/cbos-obamacare-predictions...
- fucking_tragedy 7y ago
  The ACA was a repackaging of Massachusetts' "RomneyCare" that was passed by Republicans in that state. The reason this legislature was chosen was because it was thought to be a bipartisan solution to rising healthcare costs.
  - povertyworld 7y ago
    That's why no one believes the Democrats when they run on fixing healthcare. They already had a chance to fix healthcare a decade ago, and they gave us a healthcare program from a rightwing thing tank. Wow, all the downvotes have made me realize that I really can trust Joe Biden after all! Thanks for opening my eyes to the glory of the DNC bros!
    - darpa_escapee 7y ago
      You don't believe Democrats because they compromised with Republicans to get a bill passed? If you recall, Republicans used the filibuster in the Senate, which meant Democrats needed a 60 vote supermajority to get a healthcare bill passed. When they floated the idea of a Medicare-for-all bill, Republicans promised to filibuster in the Senate. Democrats compromised with Republicans on policy that Republicans wrote themselves, and Republicans still filibustered and not a single one of them voted in favor of it.
      - povertyworld 7y ago
        If not a single Republican voted for it that means the bill is entirely the responsibility of the Democrats. It is a bill created and passed exclusively by Democrats. The Democrats passed a Republican plan without one Republican vote. The Democrats had a filibuster proof supermajority, and they decided to pass Mitt Romney's healthcare plan. But it's all the Republicans fault. Obama didn't even try for a public option like he had promised during the campaign.
        apathy 7y ago
        Independent. The 60th vote was an independent who endorsed John McCain in preference to Obama. How can one person manage to be so consistently incorrect?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- rosser 7y ago
  Can a mod please collapse or detach this thread? There's nought but noise here, unsurprisingly.
makomk 7y ago
I'm not sure they'd be wrong. The politicians pushing to socalize US healthcare are doing so on a platform of cutting costs and are generally pretty hostile to the idea of subsidising rural folks. Both of those point in the direction of healthcare reforms that kill off rural hospitals.
- tjr225 7y ago
  > platform of cutting costs Costs should be cut, regardless of urban/rural, if we're being overcharged. Not sure what this has to do with killing off rural hospitals though. > generally pretty hostile to the idea of subsidising rural folks I have seen no evidence of this...do you care to elaborate or provide some links or something?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

vidanay 7y ago

They will demand that the government "do something" (aka, a bail-out) whilst simultaneously complaining about their taxes.

Scoundreller 7y ago
Don’t forget about subsidies and bailouts that are structured differently, but effectively that: - cheap loans to terrible creditors that nobody else in the world would loan to - not allowing governments to negotiate prices, even when they’re the buyer (drug prices) - extra taxes, errr, tariffs, on their competitors - exemptions from those same tariffs when its their input - access to cheaper labour pools that no small business could possibly do the paper work for (various visas)

UncleEntity 7y ago

Or... It could have been the plan all along to engineer a "market failure" so these people have no choice but to accept socialized healthcare even if they're vehemently opposed to it.

slowmovintarget 7y ago
This shouldn't be downvoted, because this was was what the ACA was meant to do. Exacerbate the cost problem (which it has done), restrict doctor-run hospitals (which it does), and lead to a problem where the "solution" is a single-payer system so that 11% of the economy (back then), could be "captured". Many democrats thought (and said so) that there was a huge problem of all this money moving around without government control. The first attempt, which failed badly under Hillary Clinton's leadership during her time as First Lady, failed because it tried to do everything at once. It could therefore be seen as a massive power-grab. The ACA on the other hand, delivered an incremental approach that included lots of things people wanted: ignoring pre-existing conditions, broadening coverage. But it also did things like say there could be no new doctor-run hospitals, and existing ones could not add beds. Doctor-run hospitals, at the time, were actually a success of the free market in health care. Their outcomes in terms of patient recovery and survival rates were higher than state run hospitals. They were a direct threat to the idea that the government should run health care. The ACA also set the stage for the failure of private medical insurance. We're in limbo on that score, but the needle has moved toward that failure.
- guntars 7y ago
  And now you’re being downvoted because all of this is unsourced speculation and people here don’t really care for that.
  - ryguytilidie 7y ago
    Also because he is literally blaming Hillary Clinton for stuff that happened while she was first lady. I swear modern Republicanism is just agreeing with Donald Trump and blaming anything that goes wrong on Hillary or Obama.
    - slowmovintarget 7y ago
      Hillary Clinton led the effort to reform health care during her husband's first term in office [1]. I am literally claiming that Hillary did things that she actually did. I'm sorry you weren't aware of history. That Hillary led this effort was actually noteworthy less for its failure and more for the fact that this was the first time a First Lady took a publicly visible hand in core policy-making. I don't think Donald Trump is truly fit to be president, and I don't think the modern Republican party represents my views. Nor do I think Hillary Clinton was a suitable choice either. But disagreeing with the modern Democrat party is often met with derision, even if it is reasoned objection. I actually remember the political discourse during President Clinton's first term, having been part of it back then. I remember the speeches Hillary Clinton gave as chair of the task force, including the notion that it was tragedy to allow so much of the economy to flow outside the purview of government. The notion of regulatory capture is not new [2]. It is my opinion that the purpose of the ACA was to lead to single-payer. It was the kind of boiled-frog strategy that Democrat party leaders had been using successfully for decades at the point ACA came a along. The restrictions on doctor-owned hospitals are part of the law [3]. That the law would cause increased costs and dramatic deficits was predicted by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) [4, 5]. The way I formed my opinion was taking all of this into account, including the model Hillary's task force put forth in the 90s as being what Democrats actually wanted. It is a reasonable opinion that if the ACA didn't deliver all of the things from the original plan, yet it opened up many unsolved problems, that the intent was to "continue reform" and make the "natural solution" a single-payer system. I do wish we could have discussion without every comment on politics becoming a college paper. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan_of_1993 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan_of_19... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture [3] https://www.cms.gov/medicare/fraud-and-abuse/physicianselfreferral/physician_owned_hospitals.html https://www.cms.gov/medicare/fraud-and-abuse/physicianselfre... [4] https://www.cbo.gov/topics/health-care/affordable-care-act https://www.cbo.gov/topics/health-care/affordable-care-act [5] https://www.factcheck.org/2017/03/cbos-obamacare-predictions-how-accurate/ https://www.factcheck.org/2017/03/cbos-obamacare-predictions...
fucking_tragedy 7y ago
The ACA was a repackaging of Massachusetts' "RomneyCare" that was passed by Republicans in that state. The reason this legislature was chosen was because it was thought to be a bipartisan solution to rising healthcare costs.
- povertyworld 7y ago
  That's why no one believes the Democrats when they run on fixing healthcare. They already had a chance to fix healthcare a decade ago, and they gave us a healthcare program from a rightwing thing tank. Wow, all the downvotes have made me realize that I really can trust Joe Biden after all! Thanks for opening my eyes to the glory of the DNC bros!
  - darpa_escapee 7y ago
    You don't believe Democrats because they compromised with Republicans to get a bill passed? If you recall, Republicans used the filibuster in the Senate, which meant Democrats needed a 60 vote supermajority to get a healthcare bill passed. When they floated the idea of a Medicare-for-all bill, Republicans promised to filibuster in the Senate. Democrats compromised with Republicans on policy that Republicans wrote themselves, and Republicans still filibustered and not a single one of them voted in favor of it.
    - povertyworld 7y ago
      If not a single Republican voted for it that means the bill is entirely the responsibility of the Democrats. It is a bill created and passed exclusively by Democrats. The Democrats passed a Republican plan without one Republican vote. The Democrats had a filibuster proof supermajority, and they decided to pass Mitt Romney's healthcare plan. But it's all the Republicans fault. Obama didn't even try for a public option like he had promised during the campaign.
      - apathy 7y ago
        Independent. The 60th vote was an independent who endorsed John McCain in preference to Obama. How can one person manage to be so consistently incorrect?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rosser 7y ago
Can a mod please collapse or detach this thread? There's nought but noise here, unsurprisingly.

makomk 7y ago

I'm not sure they'd be wrong. The politicians pushing to socalize US healthcare are doing so on a platform of cutting costs and are generally pretty hostile to the idea of subsidising rural folks. Both of those point in the direction of healthcare reforms that kill off rural hospitals.

tjr225 7y ago
> platform of cutting costs Costs should be cut, regardless of urban/rural, if we're being overcharged. Not sure what this has to do with killing off rural hospitals though. > generally pretty hostile to the idea of subsidising rural folks I have seen no evidence of this...do you care to elaborate or provide some links or something?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]