heywood on 12/2/2020 at 20:42

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This is the main reason why I’m supporting Bernie. We have the worst health care system in the first world. Sanders and Warren are the only candidates who even SAY they will attempt to take it on, and for Sanders it’s a signature issue whereas for Warren it’s becoming a thorn in her side. The other candidates seem scared to death of taking on the health care industry’s lobbies.

I believe that single payer is the only solution that can effectively control cost growth overall. There are countless examples of publicly financed, privately provided health care systems that produce as good or better outcomes for a lot less money. I don’t expect Bernie or anybody to get there in one step, but I think electing him is our best shot at getting a public option going.

And health care is going to raise our taxes regardless of who is elected. We currently spend more on Medicare than we collect in payroll taxes, with the delta coming out of the trust fund. That trust fund will be empty in 5 or 6 years, at which point there will be a funding gap that needs to be closed. Given the current state of the federal budget, a likely coming recession, and the end of the trust fund, whoever becomes the next President is going to have to deal with a major budget crisis.

The problem with most moderates and centrists is that they can't make any bold moves without a risk of blowing up the coalition that elected them, therefore they are incapable of solving any really big problems.

Renzatic on 12/2/2020 at 21:11

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Which leads to the next conundrum. Whoever wins the 2020 election will be blamed for what's inevitably coming as a consequence of our politics. The stock market is growing primarily on corporate profit margins exceeding expectations, not job growth or trade, which is pretty decent, but not spectacular at the moment. It's a bubble built around the strength of a top heavy economy, one excited over itself, and its own performance. It'll burst whenever we find out it hasn't touched every corner of the economy, and people are being a lot more frugal with their money than the forecasted estimates.

When it happens, and we find that we've already cut taxes to near historic lows, and thus won't be able to cut them any lower to spur the economy back into a recovery with without risking a massive debt increase, then things will get even worse. No path to an immediate recovery leads to a bearish stock market. A bearish stock market leads to conservative hiring practices from big businesses trying to maintain their profit margins. Conservative hiring practices lead to tepid job markets. Tepid job markets lead to so on and so on. It's possible we'll be facing a decade long low level recession with flat growth. There are a lot of reasons to assume we're heading towards a stagnant economy.

Maybe Trump does need to be a two term president. It's easy to claim he's awesome when he's working within an economy that was already booming when he took office. Let's see how he fares in one that isn't playing to his favor.

Renzatic on 12/2/2020 at 21:23

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Because you keep voting for people who hamstring any attempt to fix the issue. The ACA would've had a cheaper public option if the Democrats didn't compromise on the issue with the Republicans, opting to built it around an exclusive private sector infrastructure. The problems of the ACA could've been fixed by now through good legislation with bipartisan support, if the current political play wasn't for the Republicans to let it wither on the vine so they can blame the Democrats for its failure.

Instead, let's bitch about some pointless aside that has a snowball's chance in hell of ever coming to pass, because llliiibbuurrrrrlllss are soooo dumb.

Yeah, the proposition to allow illegals access to free healthcare is pretty stupid in a lot of ways, but it's also ignoring the forest for the trees.

jkcerda on 12/2/2020 at 22:09

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but they ARE fucking dumb.
the rest of the nation is looking at it in CA alone.

Renzatic on 12/2/2020 at 22:16

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Excuse me? What did you say? TORTILLA? Last time I checked, we're living in America! And even though we had that damn Obama up there in his black ass White House, we still speak American here! So that ain't no la de dah tortilla! That's FLAT CORN, GODDAMNIT!