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13 hours ago, Massdriver said:

I am concerned that both sides are moving towards extremes. The Republican Party's move towards a nationalistic Trumpism is very concerning, and they're in power. 6 years ago, I would have told you that Trump has no chance, and the Republicans would neither nominate nor embrace his type of politics.

 

I have always laughed off socialism in America (and the ridiculous labels on Obama as a socialist), but things have changed in the last few years. I didn't hear DSA on morning edition a few years ago. Bernie moved Democrats to the fringe left, and now there is a growing wing that is full on socialist and further to the left than he is.  I'm not losing any sleep because the true socialists are a fringe, but I do think that Trump proved a party can be radically transformed rather quickly with the right leader. 

 

Anyway, I'm not losing any sleep, and judging by most of the posts on this board, I think I'm less alarmist and emotional over politics in general. I'm optimistic that things will work out in the end. That doesn't mean I can't point out that the DSA sucks.

 

No no, I agree with most of your post here, I was just tempering concerns was all. 

 

However, describing Bernie as having moved Democrats to the "fringe left" is humorous to me. At best, most of even the progressive far left is European-style democratic republic socialist at best and that's where Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are, in my estimation.

 

The DSA is another thing entirely though. 

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1 hour ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

No no, I agree with most of your post here, I was just tempering concerns was all. 

 

However, describing Bernie as having moved Democrats to the "fringe left" is humorous to me. At best, most of even the progressive far left is European-style democratic republic socialist at best and that's where Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are, in my estimation.

 

The DSA is another thing entirely though. 

There is a difference between Bernie and many social democracies in Europe that I have pointed out on more than occasion.  Bernie is anti free trade and anti ease of doing business. The Nordic nations are pro free trade and pro market,  they just redistribute heavily. Overall I consider Bernie further to the left than many nations in Europe because of that and a healthcare plan that is actually more expensive than most universal systems in Europe. He is a nut overall. Go back to his campaign pledges. He would be worse on trade than trump. 

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5 minutes ago, Massdriver said:

There is a difference between Bernie and many social democracies in Europe that I have pointed out on more than occasion.  Bernie is anti free trade and anti ease of doing business. The Nordic nations are pro free trade and pro market,  they just redistribute heavily. Overall I consider Bernie further to the left than many nations in Europe because of that and a healthcare plan that is actually more expensive than most universal systems in Europe. He is a nut overall. Go back to his campaign pledges. He would be worse on trade than trump. 

 

That's actually the curious thing to me. What about the US causes some progressives to look at free trade Democrats as centrist/conservative considering liberal nations have free trade agreements as well (and now with "conservatives" calling free trade "globalist" as if globalism is a bad thing)?

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5 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

 

That's actually the curious thing to me. What about the US causes some progressives to look at free trade Democrats as centrist/conservative considering liberal nations have free trade agreements as well (and now with "conservatives" calling free trade "globalist" as if globalism is a bad thing)?

 

Because even though free trade benefits everyone, the benefits are most visible for businesses and the ruling class, both of which are considered villainous by progressives in the US.

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Just now, Chris- said:

 

Because even though free trade benefits everyone, the benefits are most visible for businesses and the ruling class, both of which are considered villainous by progressives in the US.

 

And would conservative opposition (Ross Perot, Donald Trump) be more the nationalist angle rearing its head?

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5 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

 

And would conservative opposition (Ross Perot, Donald Trump) be more the nationalist angle rearing its head?

 

That's how I perceive it. Case in point, just look at how Bernie and Trump talked about the TPP:

 

BernieSanders-TPP3.png

 

main-qimg-3a81cb816d4377d98bca775772a08e

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1 hour ago, Massdriver said:

There is a difference between Bernie and many social democracies in Europe that I have pointed out on more than occasion.  Bernie is anti free trade and anti ease of doing business. The Nordic nations are pro free trade and pro market,  they just redistribute heavily. Overall I consider Bernie further to the left than many nations in Europe because of that and a healthcare plan that is actually more expensive than most universal systems in Europe. He is a nut overall. Go back to his campaign pledges. He would be worse on trade than trump. 

 

But he isn't "fringe left" on everything - but I see what you're saying. 

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This isn't directed specifically at Mass since he's a pretty honest guy about what he thinks:

 

A lot of what people say is fringe for Sanders -- universal health care, UBI, parental leave -- seem logical to me? Not complete government control of the economy, but the social programs that he pushes seem like catching us up to much of the first world.

 

Much of what used to be called fringe on the left -- homosexuals in the military, gay marriage, marijuana legalization, the ACA, Unpaid Leave -- are considered either sensible or, at a bare minimum, not "fringe" anymore. We couldn't even get red state Democrats to vote for the ACA eight year ago; now guys like Alabama Senator Doug Jones support it whereas more progressives are more open about Medicare-for-All.

 

I feel whenever liberals push a new idea, the tactics involve scaring people about the change, but change is eventually accepted as sensible and a no-brainer.

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A lot of what Bernie says sounds fine on the surface, but some of his ideas are just bad.

 

Universal healthcare is fine. I'm for it. But I don't have to be for Bernie's absurdly expensive plan though. There is more complexity to it than his plan which doesn't do anything about controlling costs. The bottom line is we need cost controls or healthcare will destroy us (actually it already is).  

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/09/13/why-bernie-sanderss-plan-for-universal-health-care-is-only-half-right/

https://www.thenation.com/article/medicare-for-all-isnt-the-solution-for-universal-health-care/

 

Bernie supports a Federal jobs guarantee. As far as I can tell, this does not seem like an efficient or effective way to help the worker. This seems completely unnecessary and radical. We are better off subsidizing wages or implementing UBI/NIT, both of which will give workers more leverage and more money in their pockets without severe negative outcomes. From what I can recall, only 1/3 of wage subsides such as the EITC go to companies. The rest still goes to workers, and it won't hurt nearly as bad as a $15 national minimum wage. 

 

I think a little thought should also be given to the free tuition movement. Does this really make sense when most people that go to college don't graduate? Why should we subsidize it any more than it already is when most people don't finish their educations? I would rather increase low income grants, scholarships, and work on the loan program while beefing up high schools.

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1 minute ago, RedSoxFan9 said:

yeah centrists love means-testing 

Cause fuck the middle class. Means testing is just a way of weakening political support for a program. Instead of it being universal, it's a program for the poors and can be cut with impunity, or just not implemented at all.

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16 hours ago, Massdriver said:

A lot of what Bernie says sounds fine on the surface, but some of his ideas are just bad.

 

Universal healthcare is fine. I'm for it. But I don't have to be for Bernie's absurdly expensive plan though. There is more complexity to it than his plan which doesn't do anything about controlling costs. The bottom line is we need cost controls or healthcare will destroy us (actually it already is).  

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/09/13/why-bernie-sanderss-plan-for-universal-health-care-is-only-half-right/

https://www.thenation.com/article/medicare-for-all-isnt-the-solution-for-universal-health-care/

 

Bernie supports a Federal jobs guarantee. As far as I can tell, this does not seem like an efficient or effective way to help the worker. This seems completely unnecessary and radical. We are better off subsidizing wages or implementing UBI/NIT, both of which will give workers more leverage and more money in their pockets without severe negative outcomes. From what I can recall, only 1/3 of wage subsides such as the EITC go to companies. The rest still goes to workers, and it won't hurt nearly as bad as a $15 national minimum wage. 

 

I think a little thought should also be given to the free tuition movement. Does this really make sense when most people that go to college don't graduate? Why should we subsidize it any more than it already is when most people don't finish their educations? I would rather increase low income grants, scholarships, and work on the loan program while beefing up high schools.

 

I feel it would be so much easier and very beneficial to go the public option route, especially since we're expanding Medicaid via states now since that proved popular, and this would be another way to get closer to universal health care (responding to the points made in The Nation link).

 

I think the next Democratic president should make a big push for that "Medicare-for-More turned Medicare for Most" plan. If you build it up like that, you can reach "Medicare-for-All" in a way that will encounter less resistance but, more importantly, would be easier to implement in a system that relies on private insurance as much as ours does.

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3 minutes ago, RedSoxFan9 said:

Incrementalism is garbage

 

Specifically and elaborately talk about why and how, especially since we're talking about something that affects a huge chunk of the economy. Did you read The Nation's link, which talked to single-payer supporters who were a bit skeptical about Medicare-for-All versus a host of other options?

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5 minutes ago, RedSoxFan9 said:

It’s been eight years since the ACA was signed into law, and it hasn’t been improved on. 

 

And yet taking away pre-existing condition coverage, or taking away the ability for people to stay on their parents' insurance, or taking away Medicaid after its expansion, are proving to be extremely unpopular. They're baked into the country now. Even some Republican governors don't want to touch any of that, and I'm not just talking about governors in deep-blue states; the discourse surrounding health care has fundamentally changed, and what's extreme and not extreme have shifted.

 

Medicare-for-All has many potential pitfalls that need to be addressed if it is to be implemented into a significant chunk of the economy. What's the problem with a robust public option, which was a key thing progressives fought for during the ACA debate in 2009/2010? With so many options to achieve universal health care, it seems weird to make a specific solution the litmus test.

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The public option was a compromise and Democrats couldn’t even pass that.  Progressives wanted wanted the public option so it could eventually overtake private insurance.  There’s no reason to waste time on the public option when Medicare-for-all is what they really want.

 

”Medicare-for-more” would be a disaster.  Democrats would suffer crushing losses during the midterms and wonder why people not included in the “more” didn’t bother voting.  

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12 minutes ago, RedSoxFan9 said:

Depends on who is on the court

I mean, I'm having a hard time coming up with an analog for a government funded/operated insurance company that competes with insurance companies on the open market. Like the post office is explicitly called for in Article 1, and Social security/Medicare is constitutional under a fairly broad definition of "general welfare". The FDIC and similar corps don't compete against other companies due to their nature.

 

Further, because it is insurance, does it need to be regulated by the states? Or is it not subject to state rules? I can see hospitals, state restricted insurance companies, and state attorneys general seeing that as a violation of the 10th amendment. And even if you can say that insurance can be sold across state lines to compensate, I see state attorneys general and hospitals/doctors fighting that, as you'd have to administer on potentially 50 sets of state insurance rules, or have it so abuses or coverage issues can't be resolved by AGs in their own state, they'd literally have to make a federal case of it. I guess the feds could try to preempt the state insurance rules, but that would also be a hefty 10th amendment challenge, and would be a massive hit to jobs, with minimal impact to individual costs. That would be a huge political impact, albiet one that MFA has as well. People would still have to be on the hook for thousands in deductibles(this is the big one) and premiums and copays.

 

Or you could expand a known, popular program to everyone, and have less risk of the program imploding for a similar political cost. You'd have a better ability to control costs with a single payer system as well.

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51 minutes ago, RedSoxFan9 said:

The public option was a compromise and Democrats couldn’t even pass that.  Progressives wanted wanted the public option so it could eventually overtake private insurance.  There’s no reason to waste time on the public option when Medicare-for-all is what they really want.

 

”Medicare-for-more” would be a disaster.  Democrats would suffer crushing losses during the midterms and wonder why people not included in the “more” didn’t bother voting.  

 

There's a pretty decent chance that campaigning for Medicare-for-All would lead to a Medicare-for-More/Most compromise; there was no guarantee the ACA was even going to pass, never mind the public option included. And there's a good chance Democrats would get crushed anyway in the midterms since Medicare-for-All would not take effect immediately. Now that the debate has shifted less, a public option could actually work, though that would be an argument in favor of arguing for Medicare-for-All since it would shift the Overton Window even more.

 

You bring up a good point about the "more" section; some people made a bit too much to qualify for subsidies under the ACA (I qualified and benefited tremendously). I just don't think simply looking at how many want Medicare-for-All is how to administer it, because with the potential pitfalls, we should be very careful so people see real, positive results.

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