2016 USA Presidential election thread I: The warm-up

[Niiro]

Are we gonna act like the GOP's stated goal was not to make the Obama presidency a failure as if there was anything he could do to work with them?

[Sho]

You give Trump way too much credit, this circus shit-show's momentum started way before he ever even announced. We're just seeing it embraced fully by all major channels of our irresponsible and depraved media outlets this past year. Extremist ideology is disproportionately amplified, while populist ideology is silenced, by design.

It's not too much credit at all.

Distance yourself from your side of the isle and look at the situation objectively -- you have a man, Trump, who is overtly using bombastic, hateful, & divisive language as well as overt demagoguery and winning among the lowest common denominator of constituents vying to pick a candidate. These are the people who go out and vote in force as well, mid to old age, blue collar white men and women. Embraced by irresponsible media outlets agreed, but again, look at who these media outlets cater to first and foremost (see previous sentence).

You should already know the real reason behind why Sanders doesn't get as much media attention as a Trump -- they don't want to promote a man who is openly against big businesses in the nation, one of which includes the major news networks as well. Their bottom line is making loads of money through viewership, and they would rather have a Trump who's loud as fuck and distracting than a Sanders who is against what they are doing and pointing out the failures of the status quo. Trump is literally the hero of the political media cycle this time around (and all-time, likely), which is why you see CNN, NBC and FOX News kissing the ring when he decides to "not show up" because he's "talked bad about." I mean FOX News alone has had to make up with the man 3 times now, starting with the CEO. Case in point:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...64447716540417

Sanders is the polar opposite and will continue to see a lack of coverage no matter how well he does.

[Andalusian girls]

Are we gonna act like the GOP's stated goal was not to make the Obama presidency a failure as if there was anything he could do to work with them?

are we going to act like Obama even attempted to court Republican support for bipartisan bills or recognize that he rammed through partisan legislation during his first two years while he had the 60-seat filibuster proof Senate majority

[notorious bum]

lol the intellectual dishonesty on display is at Reddit levels of eye-glazing. I'll stick to reading hate tweets on Twitter from random Dems advocating for neocon policies.

@Sho, I don't disagree with that, just saying the land was fertile before Trump started plowing.

[Tyche]

Free college is aimed more at the 18-24 crowd than to their parents.

Free health care isn't free, and parents who are living paycheck to paycheck kind of dread how much more expensive "free" healthcare will be come April 15th.

Im trying to rationalize what the hell you mean by this. Because people with free healthcare (Medicaid I assume you mean), aren't paying any taxes or penalties for this. And if it's employee sponsored health care. Even though the value of the plan is reported on your W2, it's not taxable. So I have to ask, what the fuck are you talking about?

[Cantih]

are we going to act like Obama even attempted to court Republican support for bipartisan bills or recognize that he rammed through partisan legislation during his first two years while he had the 60-seat filibuster proof Senate majority

Uh, he did try try court republicans because he wanted to be a uniter, and they left him standing there with his hand out, and he kept doing it for a year and a half.
And he DIDN'T ram through legislation when he had the short chance too.

Those are actual complaints about his first two years in office.

[Marootsoobutsu]

Im trying to rationalize what the hell you mean by this. Because people with free healthcare (Medicaid I assume you mean), aren't paying any taxes or penalties for this. And if it's employee sponsored health care. Even though the value of the plan is reported on your W2, it's not taxable. So I have to ask, what the fuck are you talking about?

Single payer system, it's going to involve tax hikes; it can't not. That's not going to be paid for by the employer, or at least not exclusively so.

I was responding to the "These are the things the Dems are pushing for", and saying, "This is why many parents don't want that". Because many are aware that a single-payer government health care system will cost them more in the end-- potentially substantially more, if they have to pay for it in taxes, and their wages aren't increased by an amount equal to what their companies are currently paying-- than their health insurance does now. Whether it would be better for the super poor or not is a different question, but for the working/middle class? They'll almost certainly end up paying more for "free" health care than they are paying right now.

[Talint]

[Tyche]

Single payer system, it's going to involve tax hikes; it can't not. That's not going to be paid for by the employer, or at least not exclusively so.

I was responding to the "These are the things the Dems are pushing for", and saying, "This is why many parents don't want that". Because many are aware that a single-payer government health care system will cost them more in the end-- potentially substantially more, if they have to pay for it in taxes, and their wages aren't increased by an amount equal to what their companies are currently paying-- than their health insurance does now. Whether it would be better for the super poor or not is a different question, but for the working/middle class? They'll almost certainly end up paying more for "free" health care than they are paying right now.

I don't know if they would, as long as we do not have a regressive tax system. The poorest of the poor will continue to have no tax liability. And they currently have no Medicaid anyway. Middle class, especially those not in the upper middle who live paycheck to paycheck probably have little to no tax liability and have employee sponsored health insurance that they're paying hundreds of dollars per month for. If those costs are transitioned away from them, and also removing the ever increasingly large deductibles and monthly bills they may be paying to hospitals to cover deductibles and co pays, I doubt they see much, if any rise in real out of pocket expenses.

[Tyche]

Let's take my anecdotal situation as an example. I'm probably considered middle class for my area. i guess income would dictate upper middle, but I have four kids, so I'm refusing to call myself upper middle class. I pay a bit over $300 a month for insurance. I have a few thousand I owe the hospital for a couple of observation nights for my kids. I pay another $200 a month for those. I also pay $20 every time one of my heathens visit a doctor. Then I have to buy scripts. And I'm fortunate enough to work in a field where I can pick up a phone, call a doctor friend for routine shit, and avoid a lot of overhead. Still, I'm out several hundreds of dollars a month for healthcare costs. As a middle class citizen. I cannot imagine my tax liability will jump to those levels of paying $5-6000 a year if we move to universal health care. The overall health care costs would drop off pretty significantly, as hospitals would no longer be eating the millions of dollars per facility it currently loses treating the uninsured. There's a lot of other factors at play here as well. I don't think the real world costs for the middle class would be near what you think.

[Marootsoobutsu]

Let's take my anecdotal situation as an example. I'm probably considered middle class for my area. i guess income would dictate upper middle, but I have four kids, so I'm refusing to call myself upper middle class. I pay a bit over $300 a month for insurance. I have a few thousand I owe the hospital for a couple of observation nights for my kids. I pay another $200 a month for those. I also pay $20 every time one of my heathens visit a doctor. Then I have to buy scripts. And I'm fortunate enough to work in a field where I can pick up a phone, call a doctor friend for routine shit, and avoid a lot of overhead. Still, I'm out several hundreds of dollars a month for healthcare costs. As a middle class citizen. I cannot imagine my tax liability will jump to those levels of paying $5-6000 a year if we move to universal health care. The overall health care costs would drop off pretty significantly, as hospitals would no longer be eating the millions of dollars per facility it currently loses treating the uninsured. There's a lot of other factors at play here as well. I don't think the real world costs for the middle class would be near what you think.

I would be far less displeased with 51 state/DC plans for their state. My belief in the federal government's ability to provide a $1 service at a $100 price is pretty solidly fixed. I also have this wacky belief that health care falls under the 10th (our most forgotten) Amendment, and should be handled at a state level. While some issues arise (a Washington resident in Oregon, say, with need for medical care there), the smaller-scale the implementation, the more likely I am to favor it-- mistakes aren't at a national level, then, and more control is in the hands of the voter the more local things go. While anything smaller than a state level (except in cases like New York, California, Texas, which are basically international in scope), wouldn't be large enough for a broad-base health care distribution for it to practically work, it COULD work on that size (and European countries doing precisely that on precisely that kind of a scale with success), shows that it's viable, and people can push that to their heart's content. It's more accountable (because of a closer degree of election influence), it's more adjustable (because most states are more easily influenced in their legislation than are the feds), it's less money-influenced (50 campaigns vs. 1), it opens itself up to both experiment and unique needs on a state-by-state basis, with emphases and policies in line with the desires and perceived necessities of the constituents.

I'm absolutely positive that, while a single payer system *SHOULDN'T* cost less in the hands of the Feds... I am just equally certain that it *WOULD* cost more-- a lot more-- in the hands of the feds.

[Gredival]

are we going to act like Obama even attempted to court Republican support for bipartisan bills or recognize that he rammed through partisan legislation during his first two years while he had the 60-seat filibuster proof Senate majority

To be fair, the scared Democrats in the Senate conceded way too much in the ACA negotiations in an attempt to make the legislation survivable for the midterm elections. That was nothing near what they could, and should, have been able to do with a super-majority.

Then they lost the super majority anyway because Senators from Obama's party were automatically considered tainted regardless of what they voted for since Obamacare got marked by the GOP as being about killing grandmas and paying for leeches' medical care.

Yet somehow we think we can count on Bernie to win some swing states with all those people.

[notorious bum]

[archibaldcrane]

Let's take my anecdotal situation as an example. I'm probably considered middle class for my area. i guess income would dictate upper middle, but I have four kids, so I'm refusing to call myself upper middle class. I pay a bit over $300 a month for insurance. I have a few thousand I owe the hospital for a couple of observation nights for my kids. I pay another $200 a month for those. I also pay $20 every time one of my heathens visit a doctor. Then I have to buy scripts. And I'm fortunate enough to work in a field where I can pick up a phone, call a doctor friend for routine shit, and avoid a lot of overhead. Still, I'm out several hundreds of dollars a month for healthcare costs. As a middle class citizen. I cannot imagine my tax liability will jump to those levels of paying $5-6000 a year if we move to universal health care. The overall health care costs would drop off pretty significantly, as hospitals would no longer be eating the millions of dollars per facility it currently loses treating the uninsured. There's a lot of other factors at play here as well. I don't think the real world costs for the middle class would be near what you think.

Goddamn I pay triple for insurance for a family of 3 than you do for a family of 6.

Over 10 grand a year.

Feels bad man.

[archibaldcrane]

The funny thing is that, it's impossible to guarantee both price controls and guaranteed coverage for everything (but Bernie is trying) - can we get Sarah Palin in here to tell us about death panels?

[Tyche]

Goddamn I pay triple for insurance for a family of 3 than you do for a family of 6.

Over 10 grand a year.

Feels bad man.

Does your wife have employer sponsored insurance? Because you're pretty much an independent contractor I assume. I mean, my insurance costs are obviously much greater, but my employer foots a large chunk. Also, whether I had one kid or a family of Duggers, insurance price includes all kids. It doesn't vary based on number of dependents. I've never had an insurance that does.

[archibaldcrane]

She did, but she's not working now, so it's just buying on the open market, no subsidy. Having 1 kid definitely cost more, I assume a second will add on to that.

It's a gold-tier PPO plan because of baby expenses, I'll probably drop it down to silver after this year, but that will only save like 200/mo.

[Tyche]

That's interesting that having a second kid adds to the cost of the plan. I've honestly never heard of that. If I have one kid, two kids, threes kids, etc, the cost of an employee + family is static. The overall deductible stays the sameness well although there's also a max out of pocket per child. So, if I have one really sick kid, and a $5,000 deductible, but an individual max out of pocket of $1500, I may only pay out $1500, even if I greatly exceed that with one child. I may never meet the $5,000 deductible if the other people covered don't get coverage.

[Gredival]

lol the intellectual dishonesty on display is at Reddit levels of eye-glazing. I'll stick to reading hate tweets on Twitter from random Dems advocating for neocon policies.

How about you actually point out false statements, then actually make arguments that either have empirical warrants or logical basis against them? Would be more productive than just soap boxing about how everyone is a neo-con shill because they don't drink the Bern kool-aid.

[kuronosan]

You know shit is bad when Fox News is trying to make fun of Bernie making faces instead of pointing out how hypocritical Hillary was in the debate.

Far too many fuckers here paying medical bills bitching about tax increases.