Comments by "whyamimrpink78" (@whyamimrpink78) on "Bill Clinton: Dems Shouldn't "Be Simply The Party Of Bernie"" video.

If Bernie's positions are so popular then why did Trump and the republicans win? Why did candidates that Bernie endorsed lose? Why did Coloradocare fail with 80% voting against it? Fact is the polls do not represent what the people actual want. Also, Bernie's economic policies are unrealistic. For example, you cannot compare "free college" to "free" high school or "free" middle school.
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The US is in the top 5 in productivity and has the best university system in the world. When you run through the number you will see that nothing indicates that single payer is better than what the US has.
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https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/-the-business-of-health_110115929760.pdf Bob, read that book.
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The methodology of those polls are vague and do not represent the people as a whole. Also, during election time through ads people become more informed on the issues. For example, on healthcare, when people find out how much taxes will be raised they vote against it because in reality our healthcare system is not terrible and nothing indicates single payer is any better. If Bernie would have went up against Trump all Trump would have had to do was show people his Bernie's tax plan and Bernie would have been destroyed. Bernie's policies are vague and more of a dream than a reality. High school and middle school employers educators who have, at best, a masters in education, which is not a hard degree to obtain. They have equipment that is of low quality and same with classrooms compared to colleges. Colleges employ people with at least a masters degree (with the exception of TAs) to educate, people with skills. They have equipment that is better but more expensive. They have limited equipment though with limited classrooms and time slots. In K-12 schools they cram more students in a classroom and call it good. You can't do that in college. The structure of college is different overall compared to K-12 education as well. For example, if a teacher is sick in K-12 schools you can't just send the students home. In college you can. Also, K-12 education is ran and funded locally, not federally. Bernie wants federal funding for college.
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The polls are vague as they do not get into specifics on how a policy will be implemented. Also, their methodology is questionable as phone surveys are usually unreliable. Federal funding for public schools is minute and mainly goes to Title I schools. The fact that college cost more is relevant. It cost more because the workers are of short supply and highly skilled (a professor has a higher degree than a teacher). Equipment is better, you have dorms, better classrooms, etc. There is technology in colleges that do not exist in the vast majority of high schools. And again, the structure is different.
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"Lack of specificity in the questions used is a very different claim than methodology being vague" The questions are vague, and the methods are not reliable. Phone surveys are not reliable, and depending on which region of the country you are polling you will get varying results. "I would hazard a guess that you would be generally unwilling to accept that a survey's questions are specific enough to be indicative of people's true desires unless it indicated that those desires matched your own preconceptions though. " Nope, if the question gave specific details I will accept it more. For example, if you were to ask someone if they supported free speech and they said yes, I would question it. If you were to ask later "would you support the KKK having a rally at a park even after they got a permit for it" and they said no, I would say they do no support freedom of speech. As long as the KKK is not doing a call to action, they have that right. The second question is more specific. With healthcare. If you ask if the federal government should offer it to the people and you said yes I will question it. If the question said "should the federal government provide healthcare and as a result your taxes will triple" and you said yes, than I will believe your stance a little more. We have that though, it was called the election results. The people of Colorado did not want single payer as it would have raised their taxes. "You're really just explaining why college is more costly rather than explaining why it matters that it is more costly." We can hardly afford K-12 education as is. What makes you think we can afford college without lowering the quality? Also, compared public school campuses to college campuses. My college campus just built a new gym has a library that is less than 10 years old, a science building that is 7 years old, and is beautiful. My undergrad institution is beautiful and is building an indoor practice facility and recently built a research facility. I was at UCA the other day and that campus was beautiful. Universities have beautiful campuses with a lot to offer. K-12 schools have to twist arms to get new textbooks and computers. I, as a grad student, just got new computer today. Never mind the new computers at our new student study area my university received. The government would never be able to afford it without lowering the quality. I went to a middle school with no air conditioning. Read the book The Shame of the Nation by Jonathon Kozol. He talks about how low quality the schools in NYC are. Do you want your college campuses to be like that?
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In that Cruz vs Sanders debate Cruz brought up the cost of healthcare under Bernie's plan and said taxes will triple and showed how just raising taxes on the rich will not pay for it. Bernie did not deny the numbers at all. Vermont's plan fail because it would have required a 160% increase in tax revenue. People voted against Coloradocare because they did not want the tax increase. "Never mind that an improved society will also see you better off even if you'll have slightly less on paper." When you run through the numbers nothing suggests that single payer will be better than what the US currently has.
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https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/-the-business-of-health_110115929760.pdf Read that book. They run through the numbers on healthcare and show that single payer is not any better than what the US has. "patient satisfaction is generally higher in single-payer nations." People are happy in N. Korea as well. That is subjective. "any tax increase associated with single-payer would also be accompanied by eliminating the need for paying for health insurance. On it's own that would already be an overall savings for most people," Most people get healthcare insurance through their employer, so in reality they will be receiving a pay cut.
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"Ah, the American Enterprise Institute whose stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of ... limited government, private enterprise ...". Surely a more biased source for facts relevant to whether or not the government should pay for healthcare could not be found." That book is written by two professors, one who is the chair of their department. They cite all their sources and give all their methods. The pure fact that you refuse to read it and immediately use a logical fallacy means you are not intellectual at all. I don't support everything in that book, nor am I saying it is the book that ends all debates. But if you are not willing to represent it fairly than I cannot take you serious. "Yeah, I get health insurance through my employer. How that works is they tell me I can sign up for this plan and they'll just take the premium out of my check. If I didn't choose to get health insurance from my employer (like I probably would if the government provided health coverage) then that premium wouldn't be deducted from my pay. " That is not true. They just won't pay you. The reason why they offer you healthcare insurance is because it is a 100% tax free way of paying you. That is what my employer does along with many others. But considering how you refuse to read a book just because it was published by AEI shows you are not intellectual at all and not intelligent enough to have a debate with.
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"Who would have thought that the guy citing the libertarian think-tank would be more cynical about employers' payment policies than the liberal? Either way though less money is spent on healthcare." Again, you clearly have no clue how the system works. If I had the option I would take a higher salary and pay for my own insurance. With that I can have companies compete which will lower prices and increase the quality of the service. Instead I have no choice but take what my employer offers me. That is a book, so what is wrong with it? You have the sources and methods to use to criticize. Just saying they are wrong is not an intelligent way to approach the issue and still makes not intellectual. Every heard of statistical regression models? You use them to analyze statistics. What they find out is that the differences between the numbers are so minute that you cannot say which system is better. I suggest you take some advance statistics courses.
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"I have in fact heard of statistical regression models." Then you should be able to break down where you disagree with that book. "You can look at my previous comments and see that in one of them I directly referenced a linear regression." No you didn't. " That rather flies in the face of AEI's suggestion that maybe we should use the logarithmic regression " Why? What is wrong with their model? You are just disagreeing with what they did without explanation. Why do you a linear model is better? They explained why they looked at multiple models in the book, but clearly you did not read it. Just saying you disagree with their models without explanation means you are not intellectual. "That said you don't seem to be responding to what I've actually written at this point, so I think we're done here." If we are done we are done. But in the end I gave you a source and you said "I don't agree", and that's it. That is not an argument.
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"A truly rudimentary level of understanding the plots AEI showed comparing select OECD nations' Healthcare expenditure per capita and GDP per capita would be needed to see how the data I showed favors using the linear regression over the logarithmic regression so allow me to clarify." They used the linear model and compared. Clearly you did not read the book. "The AEI did not include Luxembourg (which has a higher GDP per capita than the US) in their plot which is critical to my argument. If the AEI did include Luxembourg you would easily see that nation as an obscenely extreme outlier in the logarithmic regression. Luxembourg would not be such an outlier in the linear regression (though it would still be something of an outlier due to their healthcare spending being so low )." The reasoning for excluding Luxembourg is because of the size of it. It would be an outlier from that alone. In statistics you throw out outliers like that. "You can add basically any polity with a higher GDP per capita than the US and find the same result. I chose Luxembourg because AEI mentioned it as the only OECD nation with a higher GDP per capita than the US (which may have been true when this report was published but isn't now, Norway does as well). " I applaud you for showing some intelligence. In the end you missed the point of the book. The point was that depending on which statistical model you use you get varying results. The reason why is because the differences in the data is minute. This is not to say that the US does not have problems, it does. But it also does not say single payer is superior. Single payer has its advantages, but also has many problems. So based on everything what the US has is on par with other countries. So at that point it is best to fix the current system we have as opposed to completely replacing it. " As I said before the data they provide supports single-payer. " No it does not. It shows that single payer works, but is not any better than what the US has. You will never hear me say single payer is terrible. But I hear all the time how great it is. To me those who say it is great fail to see the shortcomings of it or the advantages the US has with their system. To me, those who fail to see shortcomings of a system lack intellect.
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