What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Without Insurance

Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by will4274 on Friday December 28, 2018 @04:16PM (#18779482)

Our government is busted. In many cases, it fails to function at all. Thousands of regulations, which are effectively laws, switch back and forth every time the president changes. Both parties blame the other and some independents blame both parties. We have become, as a society, incapable of forming and abiding to compromises. Our healthcare is a shit show, but it's not nearly as much of a shit show as our government, so we're scared of putting one in charge of the other.

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by SolaceQuantum on Friday December 28, 2018 @04:20PM (#18779506)

I agree that the government is busted. But from what I understand, one of the two ruling parties is at least somewhat pro-socialized medicine. I do not understand what needs to be compromised about socialized medicine. I struggle with the idea that fear of the government is greater than the desire for universal medical coverage.

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by michaelt on Friday December 28, 2018 @04:50PM (#18779738)

Imagine if there were several powerful allied special interest groups that all made a bunch of money from healthcare staying expensive.

And they're not just trying to change your mind. They're also working to get the support of the electorate directly.

Now imagine some of those groups had absolutely superb PR. Literally making childhood cancer sufferers healthy again.

Now imagine, like every industry that wants government influence, they hire your friends into highly paid do-nothing jobs, donate generously when you raise money for your charitable foundation, and so on.

Now imagine they're a big employer. And they've got a whole bunch of jobs. Office jobs. Highly paid high-level jobs. Well paid mid-level jobs. Jobs that employ lots of minority groups.

Now imagine that the most efficient outcome would be to shut down all the insurance companies and nationalise all the hospitals, but you don't have the political capital to deliver that, it'd make a lot of people very nervous, and you're not even sure it'd be a moral thing to do anyway. So you'll probably have to settle for a middle ground that keeps a lot of the existing middlemen fat and happy.

Now imagine, even if your reform is a huge success and goes way better than you have any right to expect, people are still going to die in hospitals, and some people are going to say some of them are your fault.

Now imagine turning a blind eye to the problem has been working just fine for the last 20 years. It'd be so easy to just let sleeping dogs lie...

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by baddox on Friday December 28, 2018 @04:31PM (#18779591)

Eh, the two ruling parties have cleverly worked things out so that they never have to actually implement any of the policies they claim to support. They can always just blame the other party for making their policies impossible. Both parties benefit from this system.

Look at Obamacare. A lot of Democrats will say that this was a genuine attempt to move toward single-payer, a public option, etc. and that they simply had to make compromises to get what they got passed (a change that undoubtedly helps many people but does so with a regressive tax, and certainly doesn’t simplify anything).

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by masonic on Saturday December 29, 2018 @06:21AM (#18783122)

  they simply had to make compromises to get what they got passed

For much of that Congress, the Democrat caucus had complete control (with filibuster-proof control of the Senate); they didn't have to "compromise" with a single Republican, hence zero Republican votes.

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by infinite8s on Friday December 28, 2018 @08:39PM (#18781116)

It was a compromise. The only way they could get Joe Lieberman's crucial 60th vote was to kill the public option, which he strongly opposed (for what reason who knows).

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by maxxxxx on Friday December 28, 2018 @04:17PM (#18779493)

Medicare works pretty well. Just expand it.

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by mokus on Friday December 28, 2018 @04:25PM (#18779551)

In the formula “just do X”, the problem isn’t so much the “X”, it’s the “do”, for the reasons outlined by the GP comment.

In this particular case, the notion that Medicare works at all (let alone well) is a point that about half the country will not concede because it’s one of many a shibboleth that keeps the “sides” at each other’s throats.

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by maxxxxx on Friday December 28, 2018 @04:31PM (#18779592)

"In this particular case, the notion that Medicare works at all (let alone well) is a point that about half the country will not concede because it’s one of many a shibboleth that keeps the “sides” at each other’s throats. "

One half will throw a fit no matter what gets done. It would be interesting if Trump suddenly announced support for single payer Medicare for all. Republicans would think it's the best thing ever and Democrats would suddenly be against it...

Way too much blind ideology in this country. Before I came here I thought the US is a pragmatic country that gets things done but now I see that leadership can't even agree on a shared perception of reality. When you talk to right wingers or left wingers you don't even recognize that they are in the same country.

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by chillwaves on Friday December 28, 2018 @04:43PM (#18779691)

> Republicans would think it's the best thing ever and Democrats would suddenly be against it...

Any evidence of this? Because there is plenty of polling data to show the R camp switching positions based on who is in charge. Never seen it apply the other way.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2017/10/25/republica...

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by baddox on Friday December 28, 2018 @04:36PM (#18779636)

> It would be interesting if Trump suddenly announced support for single payer Medicare for all. Republicans would think it's the best thing ever and Democrats would suddenly be against it...

I think you’ve got this wrong. I think that in most cases partisanship and hero worship is a lot stronger than support for specific policies. I think you’d find that people wouldn’t change their stated views on single-payer, they’d just reframe the situation so that they can continue to love/hate Trump and blame the other side for everything they don’t like.

Look at bump stocks. I know staunch Trump supporters who have bump stocks and strongly oppose almost any form of gun control. Does Trump’s bump stock ban make them like Trump a little less? Perhaps. But it certainly doesn’t change their political affiliation in any measurable way.

Same goes for those who oppose Trump. I’m sure they agree that the bump stock ban is nice, but do you think they’re suddenly “coming around” on Trump? I doubt it.

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by maxxxxx on Friday December 28, 2018 @04:41PM (#18779672)

That's what I am saying. People keep supporting parties and not issues. If the Republicans make an 180 and support single payer their supporters will suddenly love single payer and Democrats will be skeptical.

Just look at deficits. A few years ago Obama's deficits were the number one concern. Now Trump has raised them even more and all concerns are forgotten.

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by nopriorarrests on Friday December 28, 2018 @05:09PM (#18779864)

Well, if you are a gun nut, your only options are to support Trump or support his opponents who want to restrict guns in a very serious way. Naturally, you still support Trump even after bump stock ban. This is perfectly rational. Nothing partisanship about it, IMO.

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by maxxxxx on Friday December 28, 2018 @06:38PM (#18780395)

"support his opponents who want to restrict guns in a very serious way."

Is that accurate? Sounds more like NRA propaganda to me to keep people in line.

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by krapp on Friday December 28, 2018 @05:17PM (#18779922)

Supporting Trump even when he bans bump stocks when one would oppose Democrats doing the same, and believing Democrats will always be worse than Republicans on gun control, is the definition of partisanship.

The actual truth is both parties believe in gun control and both parties believe in the Second Amendment. One side just panders to gun owners and the NRA more than the other.

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by nopriorarrests on Friday December 28, 2018 @05:24PM (#18779970)

What are their options? Form a third party?

And, tbh, democrats do not hold NRA in high regard, so thinking that they always be worse on gun control sounds like a reasonable assumption to me.

I mean, I get your point, but guns does not illustrate it well.

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Re:What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Wit... by krapp on Friday December 28, 2018 @06:30PM (#18780347)

I'm just saying, the non-partisan choice would be to treat Trump or any Republican the same as any Democrat, based on their actions and not their affiliation.

As far as their options, it depends on what they want. If they want the complete repeal of all gun laws... no lawmaker is going to support that. Everything else is a matter of negotiation, though.

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