Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "The Damage Report"
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I am sorry, but that sound like a very "liberal" thing to say. There are mass protests against police brutality. This hasn't just manifested in Jan 2017 (and it goes hand in hand with economic inequality).
Obama could have united the decent part of the country.
690 counties voted for Obama once or twice (2008, 2012) and then went for Trump. On the other hand HRC got less than 5 counties that Obama never won (making inroads with the mythical moderate Republicans).
But Obama was a neoliberal sellout (highly criticized by the other wing of the one and only big donor party. They do have their disagreements even if they serve the same industries often even the same individuals).
So he paved the path for someone like Trump. The country is lucky that Trump is such an idiot. there have been competent right wing authoritarian nationalists in the past that took advantage of the elites messing up the economic prospects for the majority for a long time. If they were smart enough to adopt some populist economic measures they had a blast.
Think Mussolini or Hitler. Or now the dictators in China, until the 1990s the dictators in South Korea, in Taiwan. Even Putin. Western and Russian oligarchs plundered Russia under Yeltsin, the puppet of the West. The army was in disarray (no wages paid), the pensions and wages for publicly owned companies and agencies were not paid. When Putin came into office in 2000 that changed. Many Russians remember that.
Imagine Trump would have been smart enough to push for single payer. Widespread investment in infrastructure. Dams, streets, bridges, ....
While expanding voter suppression, doing the trade wars, pushing for war with Iran / Venezuela, going after migrants and dreamers and enabling the white Supremacists.
But some of the policies would be actually good for the masses.
Imagine a Trump that would have pulled his head out of the sand and handle the crisis more competently.
Biden would not stand a chance in the polls.
The U.S. was lucky that FDR proved to be a left leaning populist. In Europe the right wing dictators made it. Many were or promised to be economic populists.
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Coordinated nationwide lockdowns are a highly disruptive measure - in a positive and negative sense (the latter for the economy and for the mental health of the population). Disruptive for the CHAINS of infections they are the most effective tool to combat the pandemic as long as we do not have vaccines for all and not even a highly effective treatment drug. See data from the recent lockdowns in Europe: in combination with strategic mass testing * they brought the case numbers down. (after they had unsuccessfully tried - and for too long - to stem the tide with other measures)
Fast regaining conrol - much faster than in spring. To be fair some countries (Germany, Austria for instance) also let it escalate much more than in spring. All the more impressive how fast they got a grip on it - but ONLY with a nationwide lockdown. Curfews, mask wearing, earlier closing hours for bars and restaurants, rules for travellers did not help once the numbers started to snowball. Only lockdown helped at a certain point of escalation.
A kinda sloppy lockdown in some U.S. states while getting the reinfections from states that do not even that is not gonna work.
It is a pandemic = a global epidemic. Each U.S. state doing their own (unwilling, half-baked, poorly financed) thing is not going to combat a global phenomen with high growth rates.
It is like there would be a wildfire (either the threat of it growing to a large event or it is already out of control) and each district or state in California or in Australia would do their own thing. With more or less budgets, convictions and efforts. At some point they might get the military involved (in AUS).
Inconsistent, and compartmentialized is not going to work.
Wildfires and pandemics / epidemics are both phenomens with HIGH GROWTH RATES.
* more discipline in the population and mass testing and contact tracing in place at a large scale and all the time may be the reason why the Asian countries fare so much better. It helps that they are younger on average, but that did not spare Brazil or Iran.
A younger population means lower death rates, but the infection numbers would still be high, and high growth rate at some point beats lower mortality rates. China, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, .... also do not have the high case numbers !
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the Democrats serving big donors cynically chose to run on Trump bad (in 2016, and AGAIN in 2020) and that almost backfired. EC too close for comfort, 4 cliffhanger states with a total of 125,000 more and Biden needed at least 2 of them (WI, PA, AZ and GA). WI and PA should be a homerun, not limping over the finish line.
Obama thought it necessary to run on Hope and Change, and that was a landslide. The racists had to invent birtherism no one cast a doubt on the fact that Obama had won convincingly in 2008.
Biden has 7 million votes more (60 % in NY and 65 in California help with that) - but his win of the EC took too long, he should have wrapped that up on Nov. 4th.
A comfortable lead of 3 - 5 % in (former) blue strongholds (NV, MI and also PA, WI) - that would have shown in the predictions before election day. Biden head a higher lead in the polls (shy Trump supporter is a a thing, they do not admit when called that they vote for Trump).
So a 5 % net win would have shown as leading with 8 - 10 % in the polls before election day. That to would have lowered expectations and would have prepared them for the loss.
Such a comfortable margin also manifests soon ! in the mail ballot count.
Biden limped over the finish line. Slowly expanding his lead to 0.1, 0.2 and 0.4 etc. etc.
Idiot Trump likely would have been a sore loser no matter what - but the grifting Republicans would have seen no point in playing that card. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley etc.
if the networks had predicted the Biden win on the next day (incl. FOX) based on a projection of the strong showing in the mail ballos, the Trump cultists would have skipped to mourning stage right away.
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@chrlpolk tell them that they will get ALLIES in the younger participants. 328 million people will use it. And all will get potentially the SAME treatment. all get something or none. That creates a lot of political leverage (one reason all thepolitical parties in single payer countries support and would not dare attack it. The old will have the internet savvy young on their side fighting for the SAME cause.
The U.S. pays double of what it should pay. Really ! Plenty of opportunities to save money - once the transition phase is over and the backlog has been dealt with (think currently untreated diabetes !)
Healthcare (insurance and practicing medicine) is systems, procedures, protocols. It is not rocket science.
So if Medicare (or any other public insurance agency in another country) cannot help facilitate good care for everyone there can ONLY be 2 reasons for that:
1) not enough budgets - solution is massive political pressure from a population where ALL are in the same boat.
2) lack of good management - that can be easier solved than for consumer products and it shows: all non-profit insurance agencies beat the for-profit insurers in the U.S. (and Switzerland) - it is not even close !
as for 1)
The affluent cannot opt out (no "choice" no public option). If they are mandated to pay a wage / income related contribution (and more than others) they can as well use the Medicare coverage and get treatment free at the point of delivery.
With the Sanders plan the for-profit insurers cannot offer coverage for things that are covered by a very comprehensive improved ! Medicare coverage (duplicative coverage is forbidden). So affluent patients could go to private doctors but they always have to pay out of pocket. Insurance is paying once and be done. It is a psychological deterrent. They will try doctors with contracts with Medicare.
And I cannot imagine hospitals that can afford to not have a Medicare contract. Where I live - Austria - maybe 20 % of the doctor practices have no contract with the agency (often for expensive dental, basic dental is covered, or for specialities like accupuncture).
But there are no hospitals that are for-proft. All hospitals are non-profits, most are run by cities or states, some by religious groups. They all have a contract with the non-profit public insurance agency. There are enough hospitals spread out over the country to take care of the needs of the population, but there are not too many of them. The insurance agency and states and cities see to it that the hospitals complement each other, they do not "compete" (competition and free market does not work with healthcare).
private for profit hospitals could open (but no chains) - but they would have a problem to get enough patients.
Nothing helps with ADEQUATE funding and prudent use of the funding (quality of management) than having the affluent citizens use the same services and getting the SAME treatments and waiting times as the low income people.
Services WILL be good and reasonably / sufficiently funded - if a two class system is discouraged
2) As for the other potential flaw in a system - good management of the resources / budgets (or lack thereof)
That issue can be adressed (and more easily than for other products) and has been very successfully solved in all other countries.
There are several factors that ensure cost-efficiecy and good quality in the absence of the usual "free" market mechanisms (which do not work at all for healthcare).
Even cost-efficient healthcare is expensive (think USD 5,000 - 5,500 per year in a first world nation for every adult and child in the country on average. Versus 10,290 in the U.S. - data 2017 Keiser foundation).
Companies and workers are mandated to pay a modest (= affordable and politcally aceptable) contribution, the rest comes from government funding (often all levels of government).
So all in the country have skin in the game.
It is a service that is very tangible. All populations groups need it and often they feel very vulnerable at that time. So flaws in the system are well noticed. Moreover the population is getting older and medicine has become much more potent but also much more costly. The demands on the system are increasing and it creates a natural push to make good use of the resources.
Other (consumer) products/services are much harder to get right.
Sure the individual treatments and sugeries are complicated but that is what the well trained experts = doctors are for. A company that has good experts - for instance engineers - and a functioning product can still land a major flop and get themselves into trouble. They did not envision the consumer preferences right, their marketing or sales strategy sucks, or there are unexpected technical problems.
(think recall of cars, even Toyota which is well known for quality had to do large scale recalls).
To adminstrate healthcare (a lot of that work is done on the side of non-profit insurers) and to set up a structure for delivery of care (doctor practice or hospital) is actually easier to get right (if you follow the blue print) than providing a consumer service.
the human body has the same medical needs everywhere, consumer preferences do not play a role and people must be not be convinced by skillful marketing to want treatment if they are sick.
There are "blue prints" how to manage a single payer system - and Medicare (Single payer for all over 65 years) functions after all. It is not their fault that they do not get SUFFICIENT FUNDING so they can pay for all that is MEDICALLY WARRANTED. (yes that includes basic dental ! glasses and hearing aides).
Therefore people have to buy upgrade packages.
organizing the insurance for healthcare (* collecing money, negotiating the contracts, paying the bills which are very streamlined, looking out for prevention ) is EASY by comparsion - they just have to follow the
blueprint and keep the clockwork going (see Medicare agency).
All the private insurers do beyond that * does NOTHING to improve the delivery of CARE by doctors and hospitals or to serve the insured better.
The private insurers are those who drown in red tape and show predatory behavior - not the "government
agency". They have hordes of lawyers, beancounters, need the staff to deal with the countless phone calls of doctors, nurses and insured asking for approval of treatments or fight with the insurers so they will agree to pay for something (yes even nurses have to intervene on behalf of the patients - I read a comment of a nurse, she does it a few times per day).
Which of course is waste of time of medical staff - and it does not anything of value. PROTECTION of the PROFITS of the private insurance companies makes it necessary that staff and patients jumpt through many hoops and are constantly frustrated.
It is a lot of work to cherrypick, to deny care and to kick out / harass the insured that are not so profitable.
Before ACA the for-profit insurers purged citizens from the pool if they needed costly treatments. NOW they purge whole companies ! (see a Wendell Potter interview this year - I think it was Chris Hedges On Contact who had him on - or TheRealNewsNetwork).
Let's say an employee or a family member of an employee needs long, costly treatment. They raise the premiums and worsen the conditions for the company plan until the company quits. On the way to it the company and
their staff have to accept higher co-pays, deductible or the plan cannot include family members anymore.
Which is of course an incentive to not hire older people or to fire employees the moment they or a family
member gets seriously ill.
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@chrlpolk The people who have or soon will get Medicare should make no mistake: the drain on the economy if the highly wasteful for-profit healthcare system is continued WILL also manifest in future cuts of Medicare funding and the quality and range of services Medicare CAN PAY FOR.
Non-profit systems and actors (hospitals, insurance agencies) are ALWAYS much more cost-efficient than the public non-profits. HALF the spending per person (that applies if you compare the U.S. with Germany, Canada, Belgium, Australia, U.K., France, .... - not Thailand and not less wealthy European countries like Poland or Hungary - they have single payers systems as well but play in another league when it comes to wage levels and / or age of the population.)
There is -not one example in the world where private insurance or hospitals (for general care * ) beat the non-profits. Not with costs and not with quality **.
** You have to compare apples with apples of course. Thailand is a developing country - with universal healthcare - but it would not be legitimate to compare them to Germany or Australia. The population is younger, the costs of living / wage levels are much lower (wages are an important cost factor in healthcare), and last but not least the services might be slighly better in the first world countries.
* sure a few prestigious for-profit or private non-profit (foundations) hospitals in the U.S might do ground breaking surgery or treatments. In which case they deserve the profit because they actually bring something to the table (the hospitals ! Never the insurance companies which are glorified paper shufflers). Those prestigious hospitals cannot serve the need of the whole population, they often deal with rare cases and diseases.
For the general population and the healthcare outcomes of the nation (think infant mortality or life expectancy) access to family doctors, preventive care and the quality and funding of the smaller hospitals that deal with the bread and butter issues * are relevant.
* giving birth, care for pregnant women, diabetes, broken bones, fast intervention in the case of strokes, heart attacks severe accidents. Rehabilitation, .... ). A spectacular surgery on conjoined twins makes headlines but does nothing for the healthcare outcomes of the nation. And the skill of that surgeon cannot serve millions of people (even if money is not an issue).
Paying double for an essential and expensive service like healthcare is a huge drain on the national economy.
Wealthy single payer nations typically spend 8 - 11 % of their GDP on healthcare. The U.S. spends 19 % of its GDP. And not even everyone is covered, and there is a backlog of untreated conditions (like diabetes) that will require MORE EXPENSIVE care in the future. It is not only the suffering and preventable deaths - on top it is an economic damage (which does not bother the shareholders of course).
DOUBLE SPENDING per PERSON. Part is wasted on profits, lobbying, marketing, top managment, political donations, and now on fighting against the necessary reform. Lots of ads to bribe Corporate media. A lot of the money is wasted by unproductive work to protect these profits - think purging of unprofitable or less profitable insured and the daily hassle with doctors and patients.
Like I said: it is a lot of work to harrass the patients, make them and doctors jump through hoops and SKILLFULLY deny to give coverage or to pay for treatments.
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In 2016 Trump won 3 states (MI, WI and PA) with a total of 70,000 votes, he needed at least 1 of them no matter which one. The Hillary Clinton campaign built on the so called (former) blue wall. Not anymore a blue wall when she narrowly lost them in 2016, and Biden cannot even pull of a decisive win in 2020 (margin for Biden: 0.63 % WI 1.16 % PA - and that is with the pandemic).
At least Biden did win Michigan with an O.K. margin.
HRC would have needed to win all 3 states and would have gotten 273 Electoral votes - embarrassing but she would have won. it was doable with 100,000 more votes in total (to be on the safe side) in the 3 states .
Did I mention this used to be blue territory ??
That is how badly the Dems have treated their traditional base.
TPP for instance. After Nafta and after the Chinese agreement (that was signed by Bush 2 but prepared by the Clinton admin) - what did Obama, his cabinet do ? let the lobbyists write another trade deal and negotiate it with the lobbyists of the EU. Bought and paid for Congress voted (very bipartisan on that issue) to fasttrack the legislation.
Obama and Hillary Clinton lauded it. Clinton backtracked after Trump and Sanders found a lot of resonance with their opposition. HRC then said: She did not know what was in it. Well if that was the case why did she praise it as "the gold standard" before she knew the details:
That is nonsese anyway. Of course SHE could have a copy. Only the citizens, unions, NGO's, environmental groups and consumer rights advocates are kept in the dark.
There is a reason Ohio left the Demcorats - after they had betrayed the voters of Ohio.
Oh and the Flint water stunt of Obama. Gaslighting the core base of the Democrats by drinking half a glas of water and telling them now they were good. That might have cost HRC Michigan in 2016, not that it should ever have been close for her.
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He is not even smart enough (and also blinded by his narcissism) to realize that he should not make that test an issue because the bar is so low - in that interview for instance: "I regret that so many people seem to think that Biden outperforms me, frankly I do not agree. But you do not measure the mental capacities of a person by polling ... Now let's talk about my achievements" -
but a person having the mental flexibility for that would have some achievements to talk about, and the rest of the world would not scratch their head, how the heck did a no-nothing idiot with the vocuabulary like an underprivileged teenager get elected. What is wrong with the U.S. electorate ?
What is wong with the Democratic party that forced an alternative on the electorate that was so unpoplar that she was able to lose to Trump ?
Hillary Clinton's 1,5 - 2 % more of the popular vote are nothing to brag about, if you consider whom she ran against, and that she had raised double the money. (Trump's campaign was saved by billionaire Mercer in summer 2016).
Max. 60 % voter turnout are nothing to brag about.
690 counties voted once or twice for Obama - and then for Trump. (Obamas neoliberal policies paved the way for a fake populist - even an idiotic one - but HRC supports the same policies so she deserved to pay the price for what Obama had set up.
If she had believeable adopted populist positions and signalled that, she would have won comfortably. Trump won 3 states with a total of 70,000 votes more - and he needed to win all of them. With more attention to the Rust Belt and the pledge she would not sign TPP - she would at least have pulled off a narrow win.
It was obvious in the 2016 campaign that he was stupid / in mental decline, also when you compare with interviews from 15 years before. he was never very sharp or knowledgeable, so he did not have a high level to decline from - but there is a difference. The same is true for Joe Biden.
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Sanders said he wanted to be the organizer-in-chief if elected president. Well turns out he is more comfortable with being the eternal educator / underdog / dissenter / kinda movement leader, if they do not really rock the boat - . When a crisis offered a huge chance and he was CALLED (by fate so to speak) - he chose to play nice and safe with the establishment.
Sadly neither Sanders nor the progressives were willing to throw an EARLY fit about the conditions of the stimulus bill. Starting with the fact that it was tied to the handout to big biz.
There was no reason for that, only that Republicans held citizens and small biz hostage.
Someone should have called that out - with exact those words.
It was clear where the "stimulus" bill was headed, when Pelosi insisted on "means testing". Never mind the Republican shenanigans that were even more open and brazen.
So the servants of the corporate overlords "made" the progressives work their behind off that they could "secure" 2 crumbs for the peasants (and a bone) instead of only 1 crumb.
I think that placates also the conscience of the feckless, timid progressives - at least they got a little bit more and they really DID fight (in the wrong arena) and then did some grandstanding on the floor (see AOC) - too late when the vote was imminent, when they could not leverage the only power they really have.
Trump had a problem HE WANTS to win the election, he needed the stimulus bill as well.
Public opinion, people willing to do something. They are scared, all at the same time having the same problem. THAT is the ideal time to organize, because voters have so much motivation. I am sure many voters were just waiting for some leadership to being OFFERED. Instead the feckless progressives played the little game and scrambled to secure crumbs.
How about turning the tables on the servants of big biz (of both parties !). Who also did some grandstanding and window dressing, and then they all arranged for the bailouts and handouts for the big donors, no strings attached.
Strings, means testing, are for smaller biz, and normal people. And THEY shouldn't be spoilt by getting "too much".
Sanders should not have done virtual townhalls or participated in the negotiations of the bill as usual (I guess usually they do not leak the details to the press while they are making the sausage so to speak).
Instead he should have trolled them ALL, the word "general strike" should have been floated ("general strike now or later, or partially, with what we can do now") believe me Corporate media and their overlords would have gone nuts, and Trump would have paid attention.
Of course thy would have called it irresponsible. So what ? That would have been a discussion starter. The negative coverage of Trump did not hurt him -he struck a chord with people.
Sanders and the progressives were on the right side of the issues and there was historic precedence. 1932 - the united left have FDR the leverage for the New Deal. (and frankly nudged FDR - he and the New deal were the lesser evil for the oligarchs then).
Any coverage would have helped the cause.
Sanders should have called a spade a spade, asking voters to call their "representative", asking for civil disobedience. (protests IN CARS to practice social distancing. organizing rent strikes).
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