4 ms·

We could do it in the US too! Convince the Democrats to give up $x billions in $something to do universal healthcare and I bet you could get a bunch of Republi

We could do it in the US too! Convince the Democrats to give up $x billions in $something to do universal healthcare and I bet you could get a bunch of Republicans to support it. The problem is that neither party wants to make deals. They both want to have their existing programs AND to add extra ones on too. Everyone follows their incentives. None of them have the incentive to make a deal and get de-elected. They have lots of incentive to grandstand and call the other side bad-guys for being bad and not agreeing to this thing that "we all know is moral and right" that clearly we don't have some kind of 90% super-duper extra majority that all agree it's right. If we did, it would most likely be done already.

ansible 5y ago
> We could do it in the US too! Convince the Democrats to give up $x billions in $something to do universal healthcare and I bet you could get a bunch of Republicans to support it. Nope. Leaving aside the the current psychotic break the GQP is experiencing this year, universal health care is not something they've ever wanted. Why? Well, the insurance companies and for-profit hospitals have big lobbying efforts to ensure that sort of thing absolutely will not get passed. Because it would kill the need for them (insurance) or hurt profits (hospitals). UHC will not happen until there is serious reform with how politicians get elected, and how lobbying works.
- msandford 5y ago
  > Nope. Nope to that! See I can make unfounded assertions too! It's fun. > Leaving aside the the current psychotic break the GQP is experiencing this year, universal health care is not something they've ever wanted. There's a difference between "I would never, ever vote for this under any circumstances because NO WAY" and "I'll get voted out if I allow an increase in spending on something that my voting base doesn't want". In the same way that Democrats couldn't go to their voting bases and say "see we got universal healthcare! " if they had to give up the necessary funding in other places in order to make it budget-neutral, Republicans could only hope to get re-elected if they could go to their voting bases and say "look yeah we compromised, but it was on a thing that was budget-neutral! We didn't get a tax break for you, but we did eliminate all these other $horrible programs!" I'm not saying that's good or right or what we want. But both sides are playing to their audiences and very much tuned in to what they want. That's what you have to do to get re-elected. That's why neither side is interested in compromising to make a deal. They'll get crucified for "not standing up for what WE believe in" and "compromising with that other side full of awful, evil people" I don't really like that the US hasn't done much legislatively in the last 20 years. But, I, personally, myself don't get to decide how all this works. And neither does anyone else.
  - ansible 5y ago
    You seem to be under the impression that the large blocks of voters actually understand and care about the issues. Large corporations and their considerable advertising and lobbying efforts are what's really important. Much of this effort is to frame issues to the public in the way they choose. The "stances" the voting base take are largely shaped by influence campaigns of powerful interest groups. Both major parties (the minor ones too) are affected by this. Though one of the groups has gotten even stupider recently, and they actively vote against their own best interests. Edit: grammar.
    - msandford 5y ago
      > You seem to be under the impression that the large blocks of voters actually understand and care about the issues. Large corporations and their considerable advertising and lobbying efforts are what's really important. Much of this effort is to frame issues to the public in the way they choose. The idea that it's the voters that vote is actually true! That's how the system works. Corporations can influence that of course, probably to an enormous degree. But the corporations themselves don't vote. That's the system we've got. The primary mechanism in our system is people. And people aren't logical, rational, economically-maximizing, or any of it. People are far more narrative-driven than they are rationally-driven. THAT's what I would say that Republicans would get on board with a universal healthcare bill in which they could claim that they "destroyed" the Democrats by "obliterating" a bunch of "socialist pork". But that's absolutely going to ensure that the Democrats that "caved" in order to get something important done won't be able to get re-elected. And they care more about getting re-elected than they do about doing the right thing! Same on the other side of the isle! This isn't a partisan issue. Everyone wants to get re-elected way, way, way more badly than they want to do the right thing. I don't like it. I don't think it's right. But it's extremely easy to see that neither party is compromising in any meaningful way these days. Both take hardline stances and don't budge. That's not a bug, it's a feature of American Democracy. It was designed such that if there wasn't wide agreement (or elected officials who would compromise) that things would grind to a halt. That was done so that nobody could run roughshod over the other. Until we start getting richer such that the increases in spending are coming out of even bigger growth or we somehow manage to convince everyone that paying more and getting less is totally-A-OK this is going to be how it continues to go. Neither side wants to compromise, so their counterparties don't want to either. Deadlock is the name of the game. > and they actively vote against their own best interests I can understand how you'd think that. It makes a lot of sense. But it belies a terrible ignorance on your part. Animals don't make decisions on purpose to make their own lives worse in ways in which they KNOW they will end up worse. You can try and project your ethics onto other people all you want and use their relative-to-you irrationality to belittle them. But it doesn't work! Putting people down doesn't change minds. In fact putting people down might be the very thing that got Trump elected (re: deplorables). I'm not saying Trump is good and Hilary is bad BTW. I'm just using that as an example of how unfortunate it can be to generalize one's personal ethics to the entire country and draw conclusions as a result.

ansible 5y ago

> We could do it in the US too! Convince the Democrats to give up $x billions in $something to do universal healthcare and I bet you could get a bunch of Republicans to support it. Nope. Leaving aside the the current psychotic break the GQP is experiencing this year, universal health care is not something they've ever wanted. Why? Well, the insurance companies and for-profit hospitals have big lobbying efforts to ensure that sort of thing absolutely will not get passed. Because it would kill the need for them (insurance) or hurt profits (hospitals). UHC will not happen until there is serious reform with how politicians get elected, and how lobbying works.

msandford 5y ago
> Nope. Nope to that! See I can make unfounded assertions too! It's fun. > Leaving aside the the current psychotic break the GQP is experiencing this year, universal health care is not something they've ever wanted. There's a difference between "I would never, ever vote for this under any circumstances because NO WAY" and "I'll get voted out if I allow an increase in spending on something that my voting base doesn't want". In the same way that Democrats couldn't go to their voting bases and say "see we got universal healthcare! " if they had to give up the necessary funding in other places in order to make it budget-neutral, Republicans could only hope to get re-elected if they could go to their voting bases and say "look yeah we compromised, but it was on a thing that was budget-neutral! We didn't get a tax break for you, but we did eliminate all these other $horrible programs!" I'm not saying that's good or right or what we want. But both sides are playing to their audiences and very much tuned in to what they want. That's what you have to do to get re-elected. That's why neither side is interested in compromising to make a deal. They'll get crucified for "not standing up for what WE believe in" and "compromising with that other side full of awful, evil people" I don't really like that the US hasn't done much legislatively in the last 20 years. But, I, personally, myself don't get to decide how all this works. And neither does anyone else.
- ansible 5y ago
  You seem to be under the impression that the large blocks of voters actually understand and care about the issues. Large corporations and their considerable advertising and lobbying efforts are what's really important. Much of this effort is to frame issues to the public in the way they choose. The "stances" the voting base take are largely shaped by influence campaigns of powerful interest groups. Both major parties (the minor ones too) are affected by this. Though one of the groups has gotten even stupider recently, and they actively vote against their own best interests. Edit: grammar.
  - msandford 5y ago
    > You seem to be under the impression that the large blocks of voters actually understand and care about the issues. Large corporations and their considerable advertising and lobbying efforts are what's really important. Much of this effort is to frame issues to the public in the way they choose. The idea that it's the voters that vote is actually true! That's how the system works. Corporations can influence that of course, probably to an enormous degree. But the corporations themselves don't vote. That's the system we've got. The primary mechanism in our system is people. And people aren't logical, rational, economically-maximizing, or any of it. People are far more narrative-driven than they are rationally-driven. THAT's what I would say that Republicans would get on board with a universal healthcare bill in which they could claim that they "destroyed" the Democrats by "obliterating" a bunch of "socialist pork". But that's absolutely going to ensure that the Democrats that "caved" in order to get something important done won't be able to get re-elected. And they care more about getting re-elected than they do about doing the right thing! Same on the other side of the isle! This isn't a partisan issue. Everyone wants to get re-elected way, way, way more badly than they want to do the right thing. I don't like it. I don't think it's right. But it's extremely easy to see that neither party is compromising in any meaningful way these days. Both take hardline stances and don't budge. That's not a bug, it's a feature of American Democracy. It was designed such that if there wasn't wide agreement (or elected officials who would compromise) that things would grind to a halt. That was done so that nobody could run roughshod over the other. Until we start getting richer such that the increases in spending are coming out of even bigger growth or we somehow manage to convince everyone that paying more and getting less is totally-A-OK this is going to be how it continues to go. Neither side wants to compromise, so their counterparties don't want to either. Deadlock is the name of the game. > and they actively vote against their own best interests I can understand how you'd think that. It makes a lot of sense. But it belies a terrible ignorance on your part. Animals don't make decisions on purpose to make their own lives worse in ways in which they KNOW they will end up worse. You can try and project your ethics onto other people all you want and use their relative-to-you irrationality to belittle them. But it doesn't work! Putting people down doesn't change minds. In fact putting people down might be the very thing that got Trump elected (re: deplorables). I'm not saying Trump is good and Hilary is bad BTW. I'm just using that as an example of how unfortunate it can be to generalize one's personal ethics to the entire country and draw conclusions as a result.