return2ozmaSanders calls deal to end government shutdown a "disaster"
Oxysis/OxyAnd once again Bernie Sanders is fucking correct
coyootjeI really wish Bernie would enter the presidential as an independent. Not necessarily as the presidential pick but maybe as VP, given his age. Although if you see how the annoying orange has been doing recently I think Bernie could take over even in 4 years from now and be better.
I fear that by doing that it would split the left vote. Resulting in more easy Republican victories.
Perhaps. Or he could rally a whole bunch of the republican voters to vote for him as well. At this point you’re basically choosing between 2 evils every election, the borderline nazi evil and the complacent evil. Either one is not getting things done the way they should and maybe a solid 3rd candidate could change that.
As bad as the Democratic have been they are far less harmful and already have a sizable voter base.
Some voters will enthusiastically vote for the 3rd party, while other will prefer the 3rd party but vote Democratic because they don’t have faith that the 3rd party will get enough votes and they feel their vote will be “wasted” by voting for them.
I do think a 3rd party would have a better chance slowly taking over congress and the Senate by running candidates in select districts that are strongly left wing. This would also force both the dems and Republicans to make concessions to this 3rd party in order to get enough votes for laws and legislation.
Dude we’ve been down this fucking road. Stop trying to pry away the fucking Republican voter. They will vote in line, even if it means voting for an orange child rapist.
We need to move the Democratic party left the way the tea party did the fascist push to the Republican party.
Our two party system sucks, but it’s not getting fixed anytime soon, so use the tools we have.
Primary every fucking Democrat with a true liberal and get rid of the old guard.
Personally, I’m putting my political energy into arenas where actual change is possible. I’m done simping for capitalists.
Go ahead and try but I think moving the dems back to their position during Obama’s presidency will take a mammoth effort by itself, let alone moving them to Mamdani levels of leftism. I would love to see it happen but the rot runs deep, especially at the top. There are so many dems that are heavily entrenched in their positions and as you can see, it only takes a few dems (9 if you include Schumer who most likely came up with this “deal”) to ruin the party holding out in hope of better things.
DevolutionThe time for that was 2016. A lot of MAGA were initially Bernie Bros. The Democrats destroyed that bridge.
Calling democrats “the left” is a bit funny…
For the American Overton window. Of course they’re more right wing when viewed in the light of European or even Canadian political sphere.
potoooooooo ✅️Or Asian sphere. Or South American sphere. Pretty much we’re the crazies.
Yes he hasn’t signed on wanting Schumer to be replaced.
Either has AOC.
That’s it IMO. That’s the death of it all right there.
Can someone explain to me simply (and I’m assuming the answer to that is “no”), why they can’t force the insurance companies to compete with each other on price. That would seem to be the obvious “free market republican” thing to do, and a prerequisite for removing the fat subsidy to the insurance companies that they’re currently trying to remove.
Cause then those companies would have less to kickback to their government cronies
This was my first guess also.
Because insurance doesn’t work like a normal product or good.
What ends up happening is they charge as much as they possibly can. The book “an American sickness” explains all the problems if you’re interested.
The ACA was never going to be great. It was the best that could get passed.
It wasn’t the best that could get passed. The Dems had a super majority during Obama’s 1st two years and could have gotten us Medicare for all, but Rahm Emmanuel blocked it.
Rahm wasn’t the bad guy. He was one of many bad guys. The list of Democrats (politicians, not voters) who were actually for Medicare for all was smaller than the list who were actually against it. Not because it would be bad policy, but because $$$$.
Not because it would be bad policy, but because $$$$.
lol ok. But somehow they never lack money for the MIC, etc. Dems are trash.
Joe Lieberman blocked it. Rahm Emanuel was just the president’s chief of staff who tried to talk him out of it. Joe Lieberman was the senator from Connecticut, where all the old money lives.
Fuckin’ jowely Joe. Fucked us.
Wow the dems really try soooo hard but there’s always that one guy messing it up for everybody… Guess we just gotta vote harder next time. jfc.
Baron Von JThe Dems had a super majority during Obama’s 1st two years
Nope. Even for the ~60 days they technically had it, they still had to contend with Senator Byrd being out of session due to health issues.
Debunking the Myth: Obama's Two-Year Supermajority
Mitt Romney's at it again -- shading the truth on CBS News' <i>60 Minutes</i>. He's perpetuating the false Republican narrative that President Obama should have gotten more done during his first two years in office because he had a supermajority in the Senate.
Mostly because:
A) Insurance companies collude with each other
B) are only half the problem (the other half being hospitals and pharmaceutical companies cranking prices up)
C) Most Americans get their insurance through their employer
and
D) Healthcare costs are complicated because they’re split between insurance premiums and out of pocket expenses and typically raising one lowers the other and vice versa
Insurance was always a terrible way to handle healthcare expenses because healthcare costs are generally non-discretionary and have far too many moving parts and payers.
Those are all caused by them not needing to compete. Throw a few execs in jail for collusion to defraud their clients (the employers), and the other issues all go away.
Only the first one can be fixed by competition, the rest aren’t impacted by that at all. There are too many moving parts for it all to magically go away by just saying “make them compete”. For instance what happens when insurance companies compete to offer the best deals on group rates to employers but then charge exorbitant premiums to employees? Or what if insurance premiums all magically came down but pharmaceutical prices kept skyrocketing?
Medical costs are an inelastic demand as well as a non-discretionary expense. That’s an absolutely terrible combination which means they’re almost entirely isolated from market forces.
Consider for instance a situation I find myself in. I need a certain medication for a permanent medical condition. Fortunately there are multiple medications available (often due to patents there’s only a single option). Unfortunately I’m allergic to all but one of them. That means it doesn’t matter if the pharmaceutical company is charging $5 or $5000 I’m paying for it. I literally have no choice. Whether my insurance pays for 100% of that or 0% doesn’t change what the pharmaceutical company is charging. Further for insurance I was offered a choice of about 5 different plans through my employer (which is a lot by most standards, often employers only offer one or two plans). My insurance is by all metrics terrible, I pay thousands of dollars every year in deductibles, but once I hit those deductibles it covers everything at 90% which with my medical expenses save me tens of thousands of dollars a year. There are cheaper plans of course, but then the tradeoff is that I’m restricted to a tiny handful of doctors who are all terrible and every single medical decision has to be pre-approved by the insurance company or they don’t cover it and I’d rather pay the extra thousand dollars a year to keep those decisions between me and my doctors.
The US medical system is a hydra and fixing any one part doesn’t actually solve anything. The entire system needs to be overhauled top to bottom. Switching to a single payer system is just the first step in that process but it’s a necessary one because otherwise the problem is intractable. It’s likely the patent system is going to need to be overhauled at least with regards to medications before it’s fixed as well.
The simple answer is that they would make less money if they did that, so it’s very important to convince the American public that it isn’t necessary and we should vote for people who will not enact it.
Cuz health insurance and health care are both very expensive fields, and they’re in opposition to each other, so they both tend towards monopoly.
And from the consumer’s perspective:
- It’s hard to predict your health care needs
- It’s hard to comparison shop during a health emergency
- It’s hard to predict how your health care will get coded to the insurer
Cuz health insurance and health care are both very expensive fields, and they’re in opposition to each other,
Pretty sure they’re working together to exploit a ton of cash.
So insurance companies have to pay back out to their insured 85% of all money they collect each year. Been that way since the 1970’s.
What this means is that they WANT medical costs to be as high as possible. 15% of a $2,000 ambulance ride is a lot more than 15% of a $500 ambulance ride.
So the insurance companies have spent decades forcing hospitals to increase costs (charge more or we’ll make your hospital out of our network and no one will come to your hospital).
What this means is that as long as insurance companies exist, there isn’t really a “compete on costs” possibility. They’re already paying back out 85%. At most they might be able to make things 5% cheaper. There’s no competition because there’s no real areas to cut costs, by design.
The only fix is to eliminate insurance all together and go single payer, or to legally force hospitals to drop all their billing costs down to levels on par with the rest of the world, and both those options will be caught tooth and nail by insurance companies, since one would make their business disappear and the later would make their 15% cut for profits and overhead vastly smaller.
Another factor is that insurance companies make money on the “float”, meaning that they invest the premiums and keep the returns before paying out on claims. In times where rates of return on investment are high, they can be profitable overall even if claim payouts are larger than premiums collected. If medical costs are high then so are premiums and they make even more money off the float.
Damn, that must have seemed like such a good idea st the time.
It was done with good intentions, because insurance companies could just gouge the fuck out of people and soak up huge returns, and they were incentivised to reject as many procedures as possible.
It just wound up fixing one set of issues that created another. Just proof that there’s no non shitty way for medical insurance companies to exist.
lt wouldn’t have passed if it were based on good intentions. That’s just how they sell it as a “solution” and then exploit more money from sick people.
Because as usual, it’s a crime against humanity to pay gamblers to rob us of our healthcare.
This is ancient news that will never accepted in the phony capitalist/hegemonic narrative of “insurance” and “markets”.
Bernie should have started 3rd party when they cheated him out of the presidential nomination. He played it safe and achieved nothing.
bdonvr
RememberTheApollo_Don’t take it out of context.
"Israel, like any other country, has the right to defend itself from terrorism but not the right to wage all-out war against the Palestinian people.”
Wrong quote bud. This was an email I personally got in the days after Oct. 7
full quote___ There have been five wars fought between Israel and its neighbors in the last fifteen years. Over that time, and before, there have been thousands of diplomats from around the world working on a variety of plans to bring peace and stability to the region, and hundreds of conferences. They have all failed. Today, the situation in the area is more horrific, more brutal, more inhumane, and more dangerous than ever before. I wish I could tell you that I had some magic solution, or five-point plan to resolve this never-ending crisis. I don’t. But this I do know. The barbarous terrorist act committed by Hamas against innocent men, women, and children in Israel was a horrific act that must be strongly condemned by the entire world. There is absolutely no justification for shooting down hundreds of young people at a music festival, killing babies in cold blood and taking hostages. In my view, the state of Israel has the absolute right to defend itself against Hamas’ terrorism. It is also clear that this attack will only embolden the extremists on both sides who see violence as the only answer. It also creates the immediate possibility of a wider war in the area with unforeseen and dangerous consequences. But in the midst of the terrorism, the missiles and bombs being exploded daily, and a hospital in Gaza being destroyed, there is another humanitarian disaster that is unfolding. Today, as a result of an Israeli evacuation order, hundreds of thousands of innocent and desperate people in Gaza are facing inhumane and life-threatening conditions. These are people who have been driven from their homes, who have no food, water, or fuel, who don’t know where they are going or who will accept them or if they will ever again return to their homes. And I would remind you that half of those people are children. Last night, on the floor of the Senate, I blocked an effort on the part of some Republicans to prevent desperately needed humanitarian aid from the United Nations and other relief agencies from getting to these Palestinians. In these very difficult times, we cannot turn our backs on these innocent men, women and children who are desperately trying to survive. That is not what this country must ever be about. I hope you’ll watch and share it today: x.com/sensanders/status/1714806126863143292?amp%3… In solidarity, Bernie Sanders
And in any case I still disagree with the statement that they “have the right to defend themselves” from Palestinian resistance. Any tragedy that happened during Oct 7 is 100% the fault of the Israeli regime and they should be held responsible.
You don’t get to illegally occupy, settle, and genocide a country for decades until they are in an extreme power imbalance then cry foul when they are forced to fight back in any way they can.
in the days after Oct. 7
So after Hamas murdered and kidnapped hundreds and before people could know what Israel was about to do?
Ah, so you’re saying that between the initial attack but before Israel’s genocide you get to infer today Bernie supported genocide before the genocide occurred, yet ignore the context where he clearly denounced it after it was occurring? You’re full of crap, dude.
before Israel’s genocide
Do… do you really think the genocide started after Oct. 7??? It’s been going for decades. What are you talking about???
Yeah I’ll say his tone shifted after somewhat, but the fact that it took the genocide escalating and becoming an important news topic to do it really soured my opinion of him.
Yeah, I do. An institutionalized and systemic prejudicial harassment of a population is not genocide. I suggest you stop using that word seeing as you clearly don’t know what it means.
That’s up for debate. en.wikipedia.org/…/Palestinian_genocide_accusatio…
But sure rules-lawyer and break out the calipers to call it genocide or not. It doesn’t matter - the systematic oppression that the Israeli regime inflicted upon Palestine since the 40’s negates any right Israel has to “self-defense” regardless of if you so deem it “genocide” or no.
between the initial attack but before Israel’s genocide
It’s impressive how deeply ingrained Zionist propaganda is, that even people against genocide repeat their talking points.
I always know I’m on Lemmy.world when comments like yours are mass-downvoted.
It’s strangely comforting knowing Lemmy has its own r/politics.
Sorry there were two direct and damning quotes on the phrase, take it up with the speaker
Americans are too stupid to vote for a 3rd party and they’re too stupid to implement any kind of ranked choice voting.
We all suffer because of our collective stupidity, and rich people continue to profit off of it.
Oh no, we aren’t too stupid to implement ranked choice voting, we live in a country run by people who have a vested interest in not implementing it