4 ms·

Unfortunately there's lots of money in convincing Americans to vote against their best interest. Expect to see lots of "socialism is bad/will destroy America" p

Unfortunately there's lots of money in convincing Americans to vote against their best interest. Expect to see lots of "socialism is bad/will destroy America" propaganda in the future. My guess is socialized medicine will be branded as some kind of evil force and demonized.

m0zg 7y ago
As someone who grew up in the USSR, I do agree that socialism would be extremely bad for America and I don't want it here. I believe it'd cause the eventual collapse of the country, much like we've seen with the USSR and for the same reasons. I do not believe that the state is any better at spending my money than I am myself. The issue here is not capitalism per se, because US healthcare system is not capitalist in nature. Capitalism requires pricing mechanisms and competition in order to work. That's the part that's fundamentally screwed up in US healthcare: there isn't any downward pricing pressure until the prices get to truly baffling levels and there's no real competition. The Trump administration is beginning to work on creating it (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/05/upshot/trump-drug-prices-executive-order.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/05/upshot/trump-drug-prices-...), but so far without any visible result. While (if it works) this is a good start, I'd like to see some kind of downward pricing pressure on the services as well. E.g. I should not be required to pay 5x as much if I'm not covered and paying out of pocket. This disproportionately affects the poor, quite obviously: break a leg and you could end up paying $50K or more (whereas insurance would pay $5K, if that). Introduce a "favored nations" clause on that as well: if I'm paying out of pocket, I should be paying your lowest "insurance" negotiated rate.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  > As someone who grew up in the USSR, I do agree that socialism would be extremely bad for America and I don't want it here. I believe it'd cause the eventual collapse of the country, much like we've seen with the USSR and for the same reasons. Most of the world's most successful nations have socialized health care, and seem to be doing just fine. God knows I don't want a Soviet system. But the term "socialism" seems to refer to any sort of universal health care or public safety net these days, so when pundits start claiming that those things are a slippery slone to Stalinism, it's a problem.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    You don't need socialism to have universal healthcare. Above in the thread I said that we're already paying for universal healthcare right here in the US: you can't be denied care. It's just that the system grew a ton of perverse incentives and it's not in any way capitalist. Case in point: you can't even get the prices ahead of time for the most part, and doctors treat inquiries about pricing as a personal insult. Therefore there's no way to look for a lower price. That's the goddamn cornerstone of capitalism. So before we throw the baby out with the bathwater maybe we should try what this country is good at: capitalism and competition? Or would you rather give another few trillion dollars to dense government bureaucrats to piss away on whatever lobbyists tell them to piss it away on? People keep forgetting just how corrupt and inept the US government is and has always been.
    - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
      > You don't need socialism to have universal healthcare. What I'm saying is that many, many people on both sides of the issue use "socialism" to mean "any socialist policy regardless of the majority economic or governmental system." That's not what Marx intended, and it may not be what it means in the former USSR, but that's usually what it means in English. When someone says "we need more socialism" or mocks the idea that "socialism will destroy America", then barring additional context, it's not helpful to assume they want a full Soviet system.
      - m0zg 7y ago
        What I'm saying is "what Marx intended" is utterly idiotic and destructive, and fundamentally at odds with human nature. It has failed every time it's been tried, it just took longer for it to fail in some cases than in others. Sooner or later you do run out of other people's money.
        PhasmaFelis 7y ago
        Indeed. I hope nothing I said implied that I disagreed with that.

m0zg 7y ago

As someone who grew up in the USSR, I do agree that socialism would be extremely bad for America and I don't want it here. I believe it'd cause the eventual collapse of the country, much like we've seen with the USSR and for the same reasons. I do not believe that the state is any better at spending my money than I am myself. The issue here is not capitalism per se, because US healthcare system is not capitalist in nature. Capitalism requires pricing mechanisms and competition in order to work. That's the part that's fundamentally screwed up in US healthcare: there isn't any downward pricing pressure until the prices get to truly baffling levels and there's no real competition. The Trump administration is beginning to work on creating it (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/05/upshot/trump-drug-prices-executive-order.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/05/upshot/trump-drug-prices-...), but so far without any visible result. While (if it works) this is a good start, I'd like to see some kind of downward pricing pressure on the services as well. E.g. I should not be required to pay 5x as much if I'm not covered and paying out of pocket. This disproportionately affects the poor, quite obviously: break a leg and you could end up paying $50K or more (whereas insurance would pay $5K, if that). Introduce a "favored nations" clause on that as well: if I'm paying out of pocket, I should be paying your lowest "insurance" negotiated rate.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago
> As someone who grew up in the USSR, I do agree that socialism would be extremely bad for America and I don't want it here. I believe it'd cause the eventual collapse of the country, much like we've seen with the USSR and for the same reasons. Most of the world's most successful nations have socialized health care, and seem to be doing just fine. God knows I don't want a Soviet system. But the term "socialism" seems to refer to any sort of universal health care or public safety net these days, so when pundits start claiming that those things are a slippery slone to Stalinism, it's a problem.
- m0zg 7y ago
  You don't need socialism to have universal healthcare. Above in the thread I said that we're already paying for universal healthcare right here in the US: you can't be denied care. It's just that the system grew a ton of perverse incentives and it's not in any way capitalist. Case in point: you can't even get the prices ahead of time for the most part, and doctors treat inquiries about pricing as a personal insult. Therefore there's no way to look for a lower price. That's the goddamn cornerstone of capitalism. So before we throw the baby out with the bathwater maybe we should try what this country is good at: capitalism and competition? Or would you rather give another few trillion dollars to dense government bureaucrats to piss away on whatever lobbyists tell them to piss it away on? People keep forgetting just how corrupt and inept the US government is and has always been.
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    > You don't need socialism to have universal healthcare. What I'm saying is that many, many people on both sides of the issue use "socialism" to mean "any socialist policy regardless of the majority economic or governmental system." That's not what Marx intended, and it may not be what it means in the former USSR, but that's usually what it means in English. When someone says "we need more socialism" or mocks the idea that "socialism will destroy America", then barring additional context, it's not helpful to assume they want a full Soviet system.
    - m0zg 7y ago
      What I'm saying is "what Marx intended" is utterly idiotic and destructive, and fundamentally at odds with human nature. It has failed every time it's been tried, it just took longer for it to fail in some cases than in others. Sooner or later you do run out of other people's money.
      - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
        Indeed. I hope nothing I said implied that I disagreed with that.