15th November 2019, 7:54 PM
Quote:If it's just an "option" then it won't be funded, period.This statement makes absolutely no sense and has no relation to how a public option would work. If there was a public option, of course it would be funded; that's the whole point, the idea is to improve health care by a public option funded by the government instead of the insurance companies. Many people absolutely would switch to a public option. The health care companies know that, that's part of why they helped kill it when the ACA first passed. The endgame of a public option is probably a single-payer system.
Quote: IT doesn't matter if they are politically expedient, they are necessary.I know Bernie believes this kind of thing -- that he doesn't really care about if things get done, but instead makes statements of what he wishes would happen and when asked about the details goes "political revolution!" as if that's an answer, but just because something should happen doesn't mean it will.
I mean, for example, we obviously should have been taking very, very serious action on climate change on a governmental level, but we aren't. Nobody really took it seriously until it was way too late, and now things are getting bad even sooner than predicted... while the Republicans do their best to make things even worse.
So yeah, I'm all for making statements of ideals, they are necessary... but I do think you also always need to look at what can be done politically. There has to have been more that could have been done on climate change than was done...
Quote: Biden is torpedoing support for public medical care with every speech he gives, he sounds like a damn republican! He's repeating their talking points, and they're lies, every last one of them, and he knows it. o/quote]I'm not saying you need to support Biden in the primaries, I'm not sure I'll be voting for him either.
Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, etc. are all saying similar things, and no, they most definitely are NOT Republican talking points! No Republican supports a public option! Republicans don't want better health care in this country. Democrats do. Don't forget that.
If Biden was President and got a public option through, that would be the most liberal change in health care we've probably ever had. He is to Obama and Bill Clinton's left for sure. He's no Republican by any possible definition of the term. (And that's part of why I preferred Hillary over Obama in '08, she was actually in favor of a public option, while Obama was much more willing to give up on that... I think it might have happened had Hillary been President, she wouldn't have done that Obama thing of "how about we start in the center-right then start the discussion there, oh wait now you've moved even farther right? Well I just got a worse deal than I would have had I started a bit more to the left" thing he did over and over... but anyway.)
As for medicare for all, as a concept I'm not opposed, it's a good goal. I just don't think we'll be able to get there that quickly.
[quote]The gall, the sheer GALL of you telling me that supporting a candidate that actually proposes policies I support is wrong is insulting. Why even bother voting for a candidate that's just going to do what the republicans are already doing? Tell me that, what is "winning" worth to you exactly? Is winning an end in itself? Firstly, I say risking a loss is worth actually accomplishing something. Secondly, Biden doesn't inspire people, at all. Just look at the comparison. Warren and Sanders both have FAR more individual donations than Biden. Not that Biden needs it now, he's got a handful of billionaires buying him. And don't be naive, if you accept donations from giant corporations, you are going to be influenced by it. That's just reality.
We can't lose this one though, we really can't.
Quote: We need a candidate that actually excites the liberal voting block, or they are just going to stay home again come election day. Remember that the voter turnout in 2016 was pretty low among the left. Biden being a male isn't going to get 50% of the country to go vote for him. The people who hate women are voting for Trump anyway, so what difference does that make?Sure, had more liberals voted in 2016 it would have helped, but this "we need to move to the left" idea you have just doesn't make any sense at all. I'm not saying we need to move to the right to win, or stick just to the center; sometimes bold plans do catch on and help a candidate. But we definitely will not win just by exciting the left, that is not a winning coalition in this country. That's how we lose again. I still believe that Bernie, in 2016, would have ended up doing worse than Hillary did; she, at least, got a majority of the popular vote...
Quote: I've been hearing it for almost 3 years now ABF, and I had hoped that the lesson of 2016 would sink in. But it hasn't. The democratic party leadership just thinks if they "reach across the isle" harder than ever before, they can win. They won't, and it isn't worth winning if you betray every value you hold to get there.This "I can work with the Republican Senators" thing Biden keeps saying is probably the most frustrating thing among all of his policy ideas, yeah. They will not work with you, didn't you see what happened to Obama? But on the other hand, it's not like giving up on them entirely gets us anywhere either, they have a Senate majority which will be very hard to dislodge and thanks to the way the states are laid out they should be able to have most of the time for quite some time going forward. So it's a pretty tough situation. But yeah, Biden's comments on this do sound somewhat clueless, I hope he secretly knows better.