Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "Bernie Sanders"
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The app is not meant to change votes, they can't do that, too many receipts and witnesses. Not with a caucus - but I am worried about voting machines. Having them malfunction, voter roll purges (in Iowa there is same day registration so voter roll purges do not "help" if you want to suppress the vote).
BUT the app was meant to help with fast reporting which Pete hoped to spin to his advantage if he was doing fairly well. He did well, he has poured all his resources into Iowa and it shows.
USD 40,000 or even 100,000 is small change for the Pete campaign, he gets Big Donor money (and more to come), and if there is a chance that investment secures him precious, positive airtime .....
So if - IF - they paid partially for the app (we know they paid Shadow and related institutions, we just do not know for what) - the intent may have been to try to spin it while it came in.
If some things in caucus night looked good for Sanders and others for Pete - both campaigns could of course try to spin it to their advantage (examples would be: one leading with vote count in first round, the other in the second round, leading with SDE where rural votes have more weight etc.).
Pete could take for granted that the media would AMPLIFY HIS spin, if there was any chance to present it with a minimum of plausibility, and likewise that they would ignore the Sanders campaign narrative as much as possible.
Pete would of course try to put a spin on it and talk about it if there was any chance.
So investing the 40k or whatever was worth trying. To get what really counts out of Iowa, not the "win" (and the few delegates) but shaping the narrative.
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Apart from that: I think the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) just did a contracting-among-buddies scheme that backfired. I heard from Jordan Chariton (Rebel HQ) that in 2016 they used a Microsoft app to transmit the data. They counted the caucus goers in round 1 and 2 as always (by hand), likely taking down notes.
Then they calculated the awarded delegates applying the rules if it was tight (threshold, rounding up or down. Who gets votes that are up for grabs from non viable candidates, you can't divide people up. Rolling the dice, etc.)
And then they used the app to report. (I guess they had a line for phone calls as backup). So those numbers were entered in a database, and central had it easy to aggregate the numbers and announce them to the media.
In 2016 the volunteers running the caucus reported only the results of their delegate calculation (and that calculation may have been flawed in some cases. They award around 11,000 delegates on the day that gets the intense media attention so it is not THAT consequential if they get a few wrong. A few weeks later the 11,000 vote for 1,400 who then vote for 41 National Delegates that go to the convention).
In 2016 it was not quite as complex (only 2 dominating candidates, HRC and Sanders, and I think O'Malley was so much behind that he did not complicate things). Plus the vote of round 1 and then round 2 (after realignment) was not reported. That is a new rule to improve "verification" - the Sanders people had asked to include those numbers into the reporting because they thought things had not always been done correctly.
If Sanders supporters in 2016 thought something was not done correctly or some rounding defied logic and math rules they had no recourse. If such things were done systematically to harm Sanders - there was no way to prove it.
Not that I think there was such an effort in most precincts in 2016 or 2020. The people heading the caucuses are volunteers.
In the locations where they expect a LOT of caucus goers and in wealthy areas maybe party appartachiks running the show (and who knows what they might be willing to do) but in many places they are just volunteers (there are approx. 1680 precints and events). Sometimes the volunteer may be math challenged, or not up do date with rules, or set in their ways (we have always done it this way) - but not trying to cheat.
There was ambiguity over the process how to calculate the delegate equivalent in some cases in 2016, and Sanders people thought it was not always done correctly. - But the transmission of the data was so effortless in 2016 that people did not even talk about the app.
This time volunteers were told to download the new app, but it did not work on all phones. The volunteers had gotten PIN codes. But from the county party organisation, not the state party. The PIN did not always work.
During the training volunteers were told if the app did not work they should use the phone to report results (which this time took a little more speaking time because more was reported) - but the lines were not properly staffed or there was an attack. (it was 1680 events and a lot of people trying to call in at the same time).
Don't fix it if it ain't broke: Microsoft delivered a good service, but those fools gave the contract to some other company.
The secrecy (who paid for the app, who developed it - meanwhile it was leaked that Shadow Inc. developed it, and they have even apologized) may have to do with the corrupt bidding process, and doing favors to buddies.
IDP also has IT staff, they too might have developed something, or sticking with the app of Microsoft - MS knows what they are doing.
Those contracts under the table are possible if you order leaflets, a video, the opinion of a "strategist" .... it is hard to screw that up completely. At worst it is overpriced and useless.
But contracting-among-buddies is not a good fit for a critical process. Then you should shop for competence, experience and caution. Ideally companies that have a reputation to lose. Microsoft checked the boxes.
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Or the Pete campaign had no such considerations when (if) they financed the app, but maybe they helped a donor to funnel money to a certain person or company - it is unlikely that they would have the intention to manipulate the numbers - they couldn't. Pete is a lot of things, but he is not stupid.
They (DNC, IDP, pete campaign) certainly do not act in good faith, but the raw data was published over the course of the week (discrepanies were called out by volunteers, caucus goers and even media like New York Times and corrected).
There are so many photos of lists, the Sanders people had their own app where they noted the results, and they were at every precint.
On the other hand no campaign would waste money (even if they have plenty) on paying for an app - when that is obviously the obligation of the state party with help of the DNC.
In the end we do not know if the pete campaign paid for that app or if they paid Shadow Inc. for something else. If Shadow Inc are darlings of the party big whigs (several former Clinton and Obama people) it is possible they shoved over the app contract to them.
Plus party insiders told pete, the establishment guy, that it would be appreciated if their campaign considered Shadow Inc (and associated folks and companies) as contractors. And pete would oblige - after all the big whigs in the party also helped with access to the donors.
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Whitey Powers ?? Canada spends less than half per person compared to the U.S. They pay their doctors and nurses and it is not like they would flock to go to the U.S. - I live in a country where they have 54 % of U.s. spending level (8,5 million people Austria) versus 56 % in neighbour country Germany with 85 million people.
Needless to say they have better outcomes, too.
single payer works in tiny Iceland (with 360,000 people) or in Japan (I think approx. 130 million people) or Germany with 85 millions, or Denmark with approx. 3 million.
If anything you would expect the U.S. to have an advanatage because of population size (330 million).
What really happens: most costs in healthcare can be controlled within a nation (the buildings, training and paying staff, laundry and food in the hosptials). usually they need to import a lot of the equipment - but that is more or less a field where the "free market" works.
And then there are drugs - if big pharma wanted to sqeeze little Iceland they always can have a friendly chat with the other Nordic countries (or the U.K. or France, ... large countries) what they are paying (I guess behind closed doors I am under the impression the pharma companies have contracts with the national non-profit public agencies that have nondisclosure agreements. Which in reality means: they cannot put it on their website how much discount they get on the list prices.
The agencies in the U.S. are not allowed to negotiate drug prices (only the VA and they brought prices down by 40 %) and the insurance companies do not bother to bring prices down, not with drugs and not for the services of doctors and hospitals (Wendell Potter).
But if a private company would think they have gotten a good deal they would naturally try to protect their information advantage. National public non-profit insurance agencies have no such incentive. While the information is officially confidential - the information ripples through. (good news for Medicare, when they finally will be allowed to negotiate drug prices they do not have to reinvent the wheel, they can compare with VA and even better with the buyers from some major countries. Drugs are highly standardized internationally comparable products).
The Canadians are content with their system (I challenge you to go and ask any Canadian (see David Doel, the channel is Rational National), sure there could be improvements in Canada. For instance they do the funding per provinces. The problem is NOT so much the size of the pool - but that every country has regions that are wealthy and others (usually rural) that have less industrial or other well paying jobs, tourism or no natural resources.
Alberta is doing well (natural resources), but I think Manitoba has some problems due to lack of funding (waiting times for specialists - that CAN make a difference when a diagnosis is delayed or you are hardly able to work because of pain).
In Canada one province started to have single payer in the 1960s or 1970s and then all others followed - so that explains the fractured set-up. You can do that per state or provice - but then the federal government must even out the economic differences.
In every single payer system they have wage related contributions and government funding.
The payroll taxes are mandated and must be affordable (for companies and employees) so like in the U.S. there must be funding from general tax revenue. If that is not coming from the federal government but from the states there will be inequalities. (In Austria and Germany there are mechanisms of distribution in place).
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Whitey Powers M.D. Anderson is a non-profit, pays no taxes, gets grants, (got plenty when it was founded) and has university status (which may give them access to doctors in training for a relatively low wage). If you could pay for 700,000 USD you either were affluent (when did you pay that amount ? might be much more money now), had an affluent family or a job that meant you could pay that in installments over several years (and life insurance if the doctors in Houston would not win that battle).
We live in a society with mass production and mass consumption, by definition not every one can have a high paying high skills job. Our eocnomic system would not work like that.
A regular teacher could not have paid that bill (they might give discounts according to income if they are a non-profit).
Besides: one excellent institution does not change the healthcare outcomes of the nation. If one of four or five patients ration their insuline it will show up in the statistics (preventable deaths, worse health, costly complications). No matter what M.D. Anderson achieves - they cannot compensate for the neglect of the bread and butter issues.
Germany, Switzerland, U.K. also have top notch research centers and university clinics. The improvement for the masses is of course to spread the skills, the knowledge.
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Whitey Powers A 17 year old girl called Nataline was denied a liver transplant in late 2007 (her doctors - also at a very good clinic in California - had a good match and were ready to go). Her family did not have a Cadillac but a MERCEDES plan (employee insurance).
The insurance refused to pay anyway (the plan did cover transplants). The senior PR executive of Cigna, Wendell Potter started getting calls from the media, public pressure mounted, after some days (and 2 livers the doctors had to pass on) the insurance gave in to avoid a "black eye" (that's a PR phrase).
meanwhile her organs had started to shut down, she had become ineligible for the surgery and died a few hours after Cigna had given the green light.
Wendell Potter handed in his resignation the next day.
you should check him out: he knows all the "Canadians have inferior healtcare" arguments - it was his job to provide them.
He went to Canada later to fact check in reality - nope they are doing fine (by and large).
Where I live (Austria, 8,5 million people) 2 large hospitals do liver surgeries (more might do kidneys - but that is still a major medical intervention). the doctors will put the patient on a waiting list, when they get a good fit, the clock starts running. They would alert the patient and they have to come as quickly as possible. If family cannot bring them that means ambulance, or ambulance with a doctor on board or an airlift if that should be necessary.
Free of course (it is free at the point of delivery and ambulances are a part of modern medicine).
Then they would prepare the patient and perform the surgery.
Liver transplant is something that is available - it has become part of first world medicine so to speak (so on principle all can have it), the doctors decide, no one asks the public non-profit insurance company for permission, the doctors decide if the patient is eligible for surgery or not (and they make that decision without profit motive).
you cannot imagine the shitstorm if they would refuse to give a 17 year old that already had chemo and a bone marrow transplant a fighting chance.
Hospitals here are non-profits and that includes the university clinics (that are engaged in research).
Needless to say the same is true for the medication necessary for immune suppression. The doctors decide and patients get it with very modest co-pays.
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In 1988 Independent 4 term mayor Sanders arranged to appear at a Vermont Democratic party convention (partially hostile territory *) and made the case that they should endorse Jesse Jackson. - and one elderly lady slapped him after he had left the stage ;) - Likely not because of Jackson but because of local politics.
But the base voted for the proposal and Jackson did win Vermont in the primary. Which was helpful because the black candidate showed he could win a white state. Not enough for Jackson to have a shot at the nomination, and of course the party machine did not want him to succeed.
I guess the media coverage was dismissive as well, and then they could not circumvent corporate media with social media.
Also raising small donations has become easier comapred to back in the day. people spontanuously give during a debate (10 bucks or 20), or when they read something, it is only a few clicks.
The old fashioned method encouraged people to give larger amounts in one setting.
The old guard of the VT Democratic party has left politics so now they get along fine and Sanders fundraises for them.
He always runs in their primaries - for Senate, and before for Congress, wins them of course, and then runs for office as Independent. (So there is no Democrat in the general in the race, only Independent Sanders, the Republicans usually have a candidate as life sign, and maybe some small Independent - that's a Vermont thing).
Last race for Senate he won with 70 % so a spoiler candidate by the Democratic party would not matter anymore, but in the past that procedure guarnteed that if he won the D primary he would be the only "left" candidate in the race.
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Sanders was an Independent mayor, in 1981 he had unseated the incumbent that was a big whig in the Vermont Democratic party. Sanders continued to annoy them by running in races for higher office. In Nov. 1988 it turned out that the Democrat had became the spoiler in a race for Congress - so an easily winable seat went to a Republican.
Then the DNC and Sanders came to an agreement that the state party would not run candidates against him anymore and he would caucus with them. (Note: how the willingness of Sanders to run and third party candidate gave him that leverage, that the DNC made concessions and pressured the state party to fall in line. Any Democrat could run as Independent of course, but not with help of their money or their apparatus).
So he won the Congress seat in Nov. 1990 and all races in Vermont since then.
In 1988 a Republican had won the congress thanks to the split votes (35 % of the vote, Sanders close behind, Democrat in the low 20 % range, plus a few % for Independents). The DNC did not want a repetition of that, and because VT is tiny, has no large industries (read: big donors) they allowed the Independent to get away with his stubborn outsider game (I am sure now many regret they did not crush him when they had the chance).
Burlington is the largest city in VT with 40,000 people and I guess many voters there voted for mayor Sanders the Indie, and else for Democrats. So voters did not care but the Democratic machine did not like him back in the day - to put it mildly.
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Sanders has always known that for profit insurers are nothing but glorified middlemen. And he dares to say that they need to be made irrelevant. They do nothing to make the administration or delivery of healthcare better or more cost efficient. _
It is crucial to eliminate their role in the whole "market" in order to achieve a true reform. It is also crucial to mandate ! that everybody pays into the system (if they have an income). NO OPTING OUT or IN - no PUBLIC OPTION.
NOW many candidates take a piggy ride on the popular term Medicare for All - and they give it a "tweak" that seems to be innocent. Medicare for those who want it, etc. - So what they propose is a PUBLIC OPTION. I guess some know that it would set up the reform for failure - others just did not bother to do their homework - noting that other single payer nations don't do "public option". Which should give them pause.
It is plan B for the insurers and it is easy
Almost all developed nations realized after WW2 that for-profit / good and cost-efficient healthcare for everyone are a contradiction. The less "for-profit" there is in a system the better they are off. Every country did their own thing, for historic reasons some left either little or almost no room for profiteers. (For instance if public coverage does not include dental - that gives private insurers a small share of the pie). But all made sure that the large for-profit players got only a small share of the market.
Almost all developed nations set up their systems (or expanded already existing ones) in the late 1940s, Canada, Australia followed in the 1960s and 70s.
Single payer countries realized they had to set up the system in a way that the public non-profit insurance agency would offer comprehensive coverage (ideally with basic dental, visual, hearing aides, rehabilitation, and help with care for the elderly or disabled at home) - and that means of course sufficient funding - so that there was very little room left for private insurance companies.
they were smart they also saw to it that the hospitals are non-profits - insurance and hospitals is where the U.S. has the huge costs/budgets and inefficiencies).
big pharma is a powerful for-profit player. They have very standardized products, the prices are internationally comparable (if only behind closed doors) - so the national non-profit agencies can contain them in the price negotiations.
And that there was no OPTING OUT = public option allwoed. That would only undermine the public system Cherrypicking: the private insurers keep the young and healthy, the rest lands with the public insurance. 90 % of costs are caused by 10 % of the patients. Do the purges right and it can be highly lucrative and the offers to the young and healthy can still appear to be reasonably priced.
And the public agency has to offer coverage for the costly patients in such a scenario.
Germany does that - but only for historic reasons - the Germans got universal healthcare in 1883 / 1884 and then it was socialy acceptable to have a two class system, and the 2nd class was for the unwashed masses. (which then still was major benefit). After WW2 right governments did favors for insurance corporations and for their constituents (affluent citizens, doctors that get better rates from the private contracts).
A small part of the population can opt-out of public mandated insurance. They must have a good income and / or have a safe job with steadily rising income (teachers, civil servants, self-employed architects, lawyers, ...) people that will pay their premiums so the insurers do not have to chase the money. These citizens will not land in a hospital while having lost coverage (because of unpaid premiums). The insurance companies select the young and healthy as clients (for all others the offers are prohibitively high - so they land with the public agency. In essence the public agency gets only the riskier and older of the more affluent citizens and misses out on the higher contributions of the healthy and young from that segment).
Added advantage for the insurance industry: the people that get those private health insurance contracts are interesting customers for other insurance products (life insurance !), they are more educated,affluent and more likely to own homes and upscale cars. .
That cherrypicking does nothing for the fairness or cost-efficiency of the system - on the contrary. Roughly 10 % of the population has the "Public Option for the Privileged. They have full private insurance - and then there are also upgrade packages. The 10 % are somewhat protected by the benchmark the 90 % are setting (inflation rate for healthcare, and also what they must pay for at the minimum).
In single payer countries have a public option at a large scale would lead to a slow erosion. In the U.S. the insurers purged insured persons from the pool, or did not even accept them for coverage (or only at absurd costs). ACA outlaws that so they cannot do that at least not officially. Now they purge COMPANIES. If the contract with one company is not as profitable for them - the raise premiums or reduce coverage and worsen conditions until the company quits. (Or the company takes measures right away to avoid that and they fire the staff member if the employee - or a family member - needs expensive and ongoing treatments.
That means that the U.S. insurers have the systems already in place to screw those who buy healthcare insurance from them (departments of bean counters, call centers, lawyers, medical experts, bean counters, protocols and software). The private insurance companies in other countries do not have that expertise - it is just a too small segment of their revenue, never mind they are better regulated.
With the predators in the U.S. the public option would not slowly erode an existing well functioning single payer system - it would quickly undermine the whole reform (which likely would never be fully implemented).
being able to make seemingly good offers to the young and healthy is a divide and conquer strategy and undermines solidarity. Political parties can make hay of the "expensive" public service, defunding it can indeed result in lower quality and dysfunction, which can be used to argue in favor of the for-profit insurers.
But even without tricks and toxic incentives - private insurers have costs that the public insurance agencies do not have. checking the applications (healthcare questions). Marketing, sales staff, the profit. The billing is more complicated for the doctors and hospitals because there are so many different packages, and the insurers must of course control the bills before paying them also handling the many different rules that apply.
Sales/marketing costs are necessary part for connecting the consumer with very diverse consumer products. Consumers have different needs, tastes and budgest, companies cater to those needs, try to get the attention of the consumers - and profit is the reward for their effort, creativity - and sometimes just for skillfully pushing their product onto the consumers with huge advertising budgets.
We are talking about consumer products that are not necessary for survival or to restore the ability to work and take care of yourself and your loved ones.
As opposed for a product that should not be pushed onto the citizens if they do not need it or beyond what they need. A service that consumers MUST have - if they need it - no need to persuade people to want treatment so they get well again.
All the incentives and mechanims of "free" market, competition, consumer "choice" do not make sense, are illusional (what "choice" - even doctors consult other specialists, medicine is that complex) - or the incentives lead to unethical and predatory behavior.
Profit does not lead to better outcomes for the administration and delivery of care (that is different with consumer products) and therefore there is no justification to let coporatiions extract profit - not for natural monopolies, and even less so for healthcare. Which is a service that is very complex, where the consumers are by far the weakest actors in the "market" and where consumers cannot abstain from buying.
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