Democrat presidential debate official thread

dunes runner wrote:

Conundrum wrote:

Our goals are the same.

Awesome.

Being a moderate is not the same as being a republican.

Maybe. But being a moderate doesn't help, and doesn't change anything.

Your acceptance of the label of socialism will actually work against you reaching your goals. Truthfully, it worries me.

Nonsense. It was only an answer to your question. I personally like the term Progressive much better.

I have no issue with the term progressive, in fact I like it, , but the term socialism is absolutely the wrong branding for our party. The reference will cost us votes in the general election.

As far as change and moderate democrats, of course there will be change compared to what we have. But not all change is good.

Every single Republican campaigned on repealing Obamacare.

They won the Presidency, House and Senate.

They did not repeal Obamacare.

All that took was a vote. Didn’t even need to write a new plan.

How easy do you think it would be to replace the majority of coverage to a government plan?

Rigged for Hillary wrote:

The more dems welcome illegal aliens with open arms, the more Latinos who came here LEGALLY agree with Trump.

None of the Democratic candidates have suggested to welcome illegal aliens with open arms.

Therefore, by your own reasoning, NO Latinos agree with Trump.

Gov't Check wrote:

Harris' saying "America doesn't want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we'll put food on their table." was pretty insightful.

Which you're too stupid to understand, and constantly changing your nickname doesn't help.

The demos have a long history of losing positioning and naming battles to the repubs. Why does it seem, for many decades now, that there is always some very effective DikHed like Frank Lunz working for them and I never, ever see effective equivalents from the demos?

Progressivism CAN sound great but how hard will it be for them to Lunz it right into a synonym of socialism and then communism and into totalitarianism?

It's a facet that conforms to larger themes as well. The repubs have tended to focus on simple, large, issues that are their bread and butter, and every GD member had better toe the line on those issues or they get drummed right out of the party. Discipline, aggression, hierarchy, these are effective tools around which to organize.

The demos are just like this debate. Wild, wooly, disorganized, undisciplined, writing checks they'll struggle to cash. I have little faith in their branding, their coherence of ideas, their discipline, and it pissses me off. This is the party that found a way to lose to GD Mr. Orange. Should I have faith in this party?

Conundrum wrote:

That would be nice but its not the case. Sanders, Warren and Harris plan for main coverage being provided through the government program. They all raised their hands about getting rid of private insurance.

I would raise my hand too.

Of course you could still get private insurance if you wanted to, but it wouldn't be mandatory the way it is now.

L L wrote:

Your reason for saying that you prefer your private insurance is that you fear the unknown. Fear of change.

That’s the conservative mindset that grounds moderates from progress.

If someone like Bernie got elected, it would take at least a year to pass a Medicare option and many years to phase it in.

The ACA was written in 2009, passed in 2010 and went into effect in 2014.

And it what was really small changes. Not even a public option.

Medicare does not prevent anyone from buying additional insurance on the open market. Medicare "for All" would not change what has been in place for years.

Traditional Medicare includes

Part A for hospital insurance and Part B for medical coverage, meaning it covers doctor visits and other medical bills.

Part C, also called Medicare Advantage, allows private health insurance companies to provide Medicare benefits.

Part D is a prescription drug plan.

not even that rich wrote:

L L wrote:

Your reason for saying that you prefer your private insurance is that you fear the unknown. Fear of change.

I don't want the same insurance every joe schmo gets. I can afford better insurance so I should get it.

Private insurance is allowed under Medicare. Stop listening to right-wing fake-news media. They know that private insurance is still an option but lie about that to inflame gullible sheep-boys like you.

So what happens to your insurance if you lose your job? And what about people who don't have employers, or their employer does not provide insurance?

Better yet, please explain the rationale for using employers to provide health care coverage in the first place? If you were going to design a system from scratch is that really most effective and efficient? Maybe we should get our auto and homeowners insurance from our employers as well.

Why should companies that are in the business of selling coffee, appliances, airline flights, etc. devote significant resources to health care? Shouldn't they be focused on their core business?

Health care is not like other industries because market dynamics do not apply in the same way. For most industries your most profitable customers are those that spend the most on your products and purchase your products most frequently. In health care the most profitable customers are those that use services the least - or not at all.

I'm all for free market solutions. I would even be willing to privatize roads and highways to reduce congestion. But as long as we continue to force health care coverage into this current structure our per capita costs will be much higher than for any other advanced economy. Let's have a real discussion for a change where we put all possibilities and options on the table, even if it means entertaining some radical ideas or solutions.

glasses wearer wrote:

So what happens to your insurance if you lose your job? And what about people who don't have employers, or their employer does not provide insurance?

Better yet, please explain the rationale for using employers to provide health care coverage in the first place? If you were going to design a system from scratch is that really most effective and efficient? Maybe we should get our auto and homeowners insurance from our employers as well.

You are rather clueless. What happens if you do not have an employer and have to buy homeowners Insurnace? How about no employees and having to buy auto insurance? Do you thing those two are magically different from buying health insurance? Well, you are wrong.

I have been self-employed for 20 years and my employer (me) does not pay for my health insurance. In fact, since I am a one person business I am not allowed by insurance companies to buy insurance on my own. The minimum requirement is two employees. So, how is that I have been able to buy insurance for the last 20 years without a gap in coverage? Because I was originally able to buy it on my own, but when the ACA came through Congress required one-person businesses like mine to buy it through the exchanges. But the end result was identical as before, except whether I was paying price higher than someone else like me, the pricing was known to everyone. I no longer had to wonder whether I was being gouged by the insurance providers.

Through the exchanges I can buy insurance from anyone I want to. As long as the insurance provides certain basics as part of the cost --- that is the intent of the exchanges; consistency. If I want more coverage than the basic I can buy more coverage -- even mega-gold-plated insurance If I so chose. It is up to me how much I am willing to pay.

So, what is your "problem". Your problem is a nothing-burger based on your absolute ignorance of what is already available on the insurance markets. If your were smart enough to run your own business for 20 years then you would have learned this long ago. But, you are trapped working for an employer, and are mentally locked into having someone else figure out your health insurance for you. You have no incentive to study the actual health insurance markets, yet you choose to whine like a baby because some right-wing news source has intentionally misled you. ... But maybe that is not intentional because you so willing to swallow their loads of BS with no questions asked.

I'm glad you know so much about me. It turns out I have owned my own business for the last 10 years. I was responding to a poster who said he was happy with the insurance provided by his employer. And, as you pointed out, most people do get their insurance through employers and are afraid to consider other options.

My argument was that we should do away with employer-sponsored insurance, but I guess you missed that, and attacked me on the basis of a few lines in my post, taken out of context.

Back to the debate question regarding insurance, the question was who would ABOLISH private insurance and replace it with a government program. Sanders, Warren and Harris raised their hands. Harris tried to later lie her way out of it and tried to sneakily obfuscate the issue claim you could buy supplemental insurance. (Anyone has a right to insure anything so supplemental insurance is always available for anything)

Heres the deal. I provide a good service to my company they repay me with salary and good medical insurance. It works for us. If the government wants to provide a private insurance option for those not unfortunate as me, I am all for that.

Sanders and Warren are ethical and upfront about their plan, Harris has shown herself to be more Machiavellian in her approach.

Who can be Most Woke among the candidates?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/cory-booker-takes-aim-joe-biden-s-language-about-race-n1025011

Conundrum wrote:

Back to the debate question regarding insurance, the question was who would ABOLISH private insurance and replace it with a government program.

No one said they would ABOLISH private insurance you idiot.

They would get rid of the REQUIREMENT to have private insurance, by providing government insurance at less than 50 percent of the cost. Anyone could still pay more to have private insurance in addition - which they kept repeating several times but, even so, some idiots like you still managed to miss it.

Hey dingbat, pay attention. Bernie, and those ascribing to his ideas about a plan, would do away with private insurance. His idea is to create a gigantic pool of the American populace with centralized administration of a standardized plan. Without doing so, you cannot wring out the excessive-profit-motive-as-decision-driver and cannot bake in needed efficiencies to make the whole thing work. He has always said that providers and contractors within such a plan would operate privately, but that insurers (setting underwriting rules, making decisions about acceptable care, etc) would not be allowed within the framework. I would entertain such a plan based on the idea that healthcare is perhaps a human right (although is it really?), so it being completely socialized would seem OK to me as long as the thing worked reasonably well. The tradeoffs are higher taxes in the form of tax-instead-of-insurance-premium, coupled with greatly reduced anxiety about catastrophic impact of injury or illness. The potential downsides include medical professionals who balk at working in such a system, pain in conversion from our current patchwork non-system, questions about capacity and capability of our terrible politicians to set up a working system, and the knowledge that free-marketeers and their enablers will look for a way to destroy such a system for decades to come. I also worry about the very large segment of our population that have become utterly dependent and who subsist on the welfare state teet. Will they flood into the system and create massive burdens on the rest of us, or will the system provision of reasonable care actually reduce costs by keeping them out of the ER a little more often? Lots to chew on.

You are Stupid. wrote:

Conundrum wrote:

Back to the debate question regarding insurance, the question was who would ABOLISH private insurance and replace it with a government program.

No one said they would ABOLISH private insurance you idiot.

They would get rid of the REQUIREMENT to have private insurance, by providing government insurance at less than 50 percent of the cost. Anyone could still pay more to have private insurance in addition - which they kept repeating several times but, even so, some idiots like you still managed to miss it.

You are Stupid. wrote:

Conundrum wrote:

Back to the debate question regarding insurance, the question was who would ABOLISH private insurance and replace it with a government program.

No one said they would ABOLISH private insurance you idiot.

They would get rid of the REQUIREMENT to have private insurance, by providing government insurance at less than 50 percent of the cost. Anyone could still pay more to have private insurance in addition - which they kept repeating several times but, even so, some idiots like you still managed to miss it.

You should be careful with insults especially when you are flat out wrong. Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All bill which has been submitted to Congress DOES ELIMINATE PRIVATE INSURANCE. Kamala Harris is a co-sponsor of that bill.

Of course now Harris is flopping around like a fish in a boat.

WTFUTA wrote:

Bernie, and those ascribing to his ideas about a plan, would do away with private insurance.

WRONG. Medicare ALREADY has a private insurance "option" which any can pay for. It is called Medicare, Part C. It has been around since 1995 when Bill Clinton was president. Yup, a democrat was responsible for allowing private insurance in Medicare, and not a republican.

the actual truth wrote:

You should be careful with insults especially when you are flat out wrong. Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All bill which has been submitted to Congress DOES ELIMINATE PRIVATE INSURANCE. Kamala Harris is a co-sponsor of that bill.

Incorrect. What it actually says is:

"Prohibits a private health insurer from selling health insurance coverage that duplicates the benefits provided under this Act. Allows the private insurers to sell benefits not medically necessary, such as cosmetic surgery benefits."

Or, you can pay more to stay at a resort hospital with the resort being paid by Medicare for all for the basic requirements, and you paying anything above the price. Maybe you want daily rub and tugs. Or 1200 thread silk sheets. Or 24 karat golden spoons to eat with. You'll have to negotiate those costs with the hospital yourself.

Democracy USA™: the periodic legitimization by popular vote of vetted candidates put forward for high office by USA Inc., nominal party affiliations notwithstanding.

The Democrats are not the "lesser evil;" they are an auxiliary subdivision of the same evil. To understand the political system, one must step back and regard its operation as an integrated whole. The system can't be properly understood if one's study of it begins with an uncritical acceptance of the 2-party system, and the conventional characterizations of the two parties.

Think of a 2-stroke engine. The Trump-Repub downstroke will be followed by a DLC-DNC upstroke. Since 1980: Carter to Reagan. Reagan and Bush to Bill Clinton. Bush to Obama. Trump to Warren/Biden/Sanders et al. Both strokes burn the fuel of their duped supporters, and betray them.

The elaborate Democratic debates reveal the inordinate funds and media attention required to run for president. That in itself, is the reason why in the end the security/surveillance/corporate state always chooses the nominees for the corrupt political duopoly. Mainstream media news selects the candidate who'll receive the most attention and then they concoct an appropriate narrative around their candidacy making them more appealing to the public.

Last week it was Biden and this week it's Harris-- the corporate mainstream ONLY avidly supports candidates who the security/surveillance state trusts. The electoral process will remain a sham until there is public financing of all elections, the elimination of the Electoral College, rejection of partisan gerrymandering, and requiring all mainstream media news to cover every candidate equally.