Discussion: Sanders Trolls Clinton On Health Care With Tweet From Her Own Campaign Head

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Single payer healthcare has zero chance of passing in this congress. Senator Sanders is promising something that can never be delivered. At least Hillary is in reality land on talking about how to build on and improve ACA. Vermont could not even get a single payer plan accomplished.

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22

I haven’t heard Bernie claim that “this Congress” would pass single payer. But it’s a goal we should work toward, not try to thwart by parroting right-wing disinformation like Hillary is.

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I agree with you – but I also realize she can’t propose a policy that has absolutely no chance of passing while the GOP controls both legislative bodies. However, I wish she would counter that if the american people demand single payer she would support it and do everything she could to make sure it happens – but that she would need voters to make it possible by voting the obstructionists out of office (GOP and DEMOCRATS alike.). That scenario would not likely happen either – but at the very least, she’d leave the door open to merits of the idea. When she discredits the idea outright, I further resent that i still will have to vote for her. Ugh.

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Then the point is moot as far as a campaign promise-- no?
I think the give and take between Sen Sanders and HRC regarding single-payer is invaluable-- in that the more it’s discussed-- the more likely that the voting citizenry will become familiar-- and eventually wake up to the benefits.

But the hard fact is-- it will not pass in the next Congress-- just as it would not have in 2009-10.

I am so thankful for what BHO delivered in the ACA-- when it happened.
Had the pre-existing conditions clause not been effected in advance of the rollout of the whole of the ACA–

I can say with near-certainty I would be dead today.

A victim of a condition that would have become colon cancer within a year of the clause being enacted.

Extrapolate that among the numbers of individuals whose circumstances somewhat mirrored mine-- and you are likely talking about scores of thousands of people who are alive today because of how BHO delivered what was possible.

I’m all for pushing the envelope for single-payer.
But it irks me when those who have a whimsical perspective on ‘what should have happened’ have no clue as to the reality-- and how the ACA positively affected so many-- when they needed it.

jw1

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25

For only one year our family qualified for tax credits in the form of my daughter being put on the medicaid expansion. I was very worried that she would receive sub-optimal care. However, it was exactly the opposite. She got finest medical and dental care we have ever seen – even approved for a surgery that surely a private company would have found a way to deny. The only thing I noticed was that the drug formulary was limited – but if i had chosen to appeal, I think I could have gotten it taken care of. This experience gave me a glimpse of what we’d been missing all these years while paying major premiums and getting very little in return. I wish we still qualified – but 2014 we overshot the income cut-off by just a couple thousand dollars – and as a result, we have to pay back the tax credits we had been granted. Now an enormous tax bill with penalties and interest. I am sure I am not alone – our CPA missed this when he filed our taxes. Be very careful when you accept the subsidy – if you are self-employed and do not know your final income its difficult to anticipate your qualification.

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26

Why not? That describes most of the policies supported by all three Democratic candidates – barely any of it has any chance of passing while the GOP controls both legislative bodies.

Part of how you work to change who controls legislative bodies is proposing policies that the current members of those bodies will not support, and pointing that out to the voting public.

I agree, the right approach would be for her to make the honest argument that the current Congress wouldn’t support Medicare For All, but that’s part of why we should vote them out. Rather than the dishonest argument that Medicare for All would be too expensive and a payroll tax to pay for it would hurt working families (ignoring the fact that the average person would save more in premiums than they would pay in taxes) or this nonsense about how it would leave people at the mercy of the states (which, ironically, is exactly what is happening now, due to the Supreme Court’s neutering of the Medicaid expansion requirement in Obamacare).

It’s stuff like this that explains why even some in her own party, who don’t buy into all the Republican attacks on her character, nonetheless do find her untrustworthy and at times downright dishonest.

But at the same time, there’s no denying that she’s a pretty damned astute politician. And it may indeed be good politics for her to take a more “moderate” position on this as she looks beyond the primary, so that she can say she’s not going to raise any taxes on the middle class and working people (even if those taxes are for something that would help them like Family and Medical Leave, or Medicare for All). Personally I think it’s a mistake to tie herself to a George H.W. Bush - like “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge…but I don’t claim to be an objective analyst on that point.

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27

By that standard pretty much every campaign promise by all three of the Democratic candidates are “moot.” Because virtually none of them would be passed by “this Congress.”

Like you, I have benefitted from the ACA, both directly and indirectly (as it has helped others around me). So I totally get where you’re coming from. And I agree that the give and take between Bernie and Hillary on this issue is useful and important. I just hate to see Hilary out there deploying Republican disinformation points in her arguments.

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28

The ACA has had a direct impact on my brother’s continued survival of cancer. He’d be thrown off his insurance by now if it weren’t in place. We are grateful for the ACA everyday – even if its not a perfect system. And when I’ve heard one of my stupid family member complain about it – I tell them that they’d sign my brother’s death warrant over politics. That shuts them up when it hits close to home

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29

You may have hit on HRC’s strategem for seguing from primary-to-general-campaign-mode without having to perform a Romneyesque-Etch-A-Sketch. A calculated move.

And knowing she has one of the best politician’s ever-- reading the tea leaves-- from outside her campaign’s insular bubble-- gives more credence to your hypothesis.

jw1

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30

I guess in the simplest terms, “I support raising taxes on the wealthy, but will not raise any taxes on the middle class, working families and the poor” is just a lot simpler and safer than “I support raising taxes on everyone, but much more for the wealthy – and don’t worry, the middle class, working families and the poor will get back good value for what they put in in increased taxes, because they’ll get Medicare for All, and Family and Medical Leave, and so on.” I actually agree more with the second statement, but there’s no doubt the first one is a lot less unwieldy.

By the way, I agree, the relative ease of the first argument compared to the second one surely is not lost on a certain potential future First Gentleman. (And yes, if she wins, I think that’s what he should insist on being called, both because it makes sense as the male equivalent of First Lady, and because it will drive Republicans a bit nuts having him officially referred to as a “gentleman.”)

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31

I vividly remember some people here blaming Obama back then for not “striking fears into” those in Congress to pass what they in reality would never pass.

I still find that line of thinking quite mind-boggling.

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Maybe they should do like Germany did. If I understand it, private health insurance firms must all offer a basic health care package on a non-prfit basis.

,They can also sell supplemental policies on a for-profit basis. The idea is the basic package is a sort of nonprofit public option, with additional packages available who want to pay for larger specialty networks, laser or cosmetic surgery, concierge medicine or some other service.

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The challenge for the latter statement is it would have to beat what behavioral economists call present bias. The reality is so many people vote emotion, not complex issues and policy proposals, and it’s hard to appeal to both at the same time.

The guy is truly one of a kind in that regard – I’ve never seen anyone else that can explain stuff and still relate.

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34

During her presidential campaign, Clinton has suggested Sanders’ plan amounts to a tax hike for the middle class and in a speech this week, suggested that it was a “risky deal” that would turn “over your and my health insurance to governors.”

… “as opposed to remaining where it belongs, in the hands of for-profit corporate campaign donors with a legal obligation to focus without mercy on the bottom line rather than on the general welfare of the American people.”

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