# 2016 Bernie Sanders (D-VT) campaign for POTUS thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 28, 2015, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754 "2015-04-28T22:40:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 47
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/921 "2016-02-24T01:21:08Z")
If their private insurers actually can compete with the public sector, as their ideology constantly claims it can, despite the administrative bloat that makes our health care system the most expensive as well as the narrowest-covering one in the civilized world, then it would be available to them, yes. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/922 "2016-02-24T02:15:51Z")
Wow, **Sam Stone** , that was amazing. So what you’re saying is that practically everything you name as a problem of the Canadian system is one that your southern neighbors already have, but a Canuck could get a torn ACL fixed for free after being on a waiting list for a year, and emergency departments don’t charge bills of several thousand dollars. Yep, you are still better off. Both the USA and Canada suffer from shortages of trained physicians, but that dates to policies from the 1990’s that capped the number of physicians we train, not from health insurance systems as such. If we fixed those shortages, that would solve some of the pricing problems here and most of the wait times on both sides of the border. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/923 "2016-02-24T12:45:44Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > If their private insurers actually can compete with the public sector, as their ideology constantly claims it can, despite the administrative bloat that makes our health care system the most expensive as well as the narrowest-covering one in the civilized world, then it would be available to them, yes. I think the private sector would LOVE to take that challenge, provided the public system doesn’t enjoy a bailout guarantee if it runs out of money. If it runs out of money, it dies, just like a private company. Also, administrative costs can’t be offloaded onto another federal agency as with Medicare. Medicare fraud is not investigated by CMS, but by the FBI. A new single payer system would have to have responsibility to do its own fraud investigations. Gotta have those conditions, because it’s easy for public companies to outcompete private companies when they get all kinds of aid that private companies don’t have access to. Oh, and in case it wasn’t obvious, premiums have to cover 100% of the single payer system’s costs. No supplementing it with general revenue. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/924 "2016-02-24T16:17:34Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > In your system, those sliding-scale credits are just a tax-funded kludge for some patients, while you avoid admitting that commercial insurance isn’t a real solution for everyone. And as in states today that still refuse to expand Medicaid, those credits will presumably eventually go unfunded, because they don’t have buy-in from the middle income quintile. To have a stable system that covers the poor, it’s better to get a majority of voters on the same system as the smelly peons, so it’s their system too. > > “Programs for the poor are poor programs.” You seem to be saying that everyone should have the exact access to the same healthcare and we can achieve that by making it free for everyone at a sufficiently high level that there won’t be a market for private insurance. We can’t afford that. We have plenty of programs for the poor that work reasonably well. Would you say that we should get rid of the private food market and replace it with universal food stamps so that the poor don’t end up eating worse than the middle class? There are certainly health concerns because of poor access to healthy foods. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/925 "2016-02-24T16:27:14Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Complaining about “rationing,” as if care isn’t denied to many Americans now, is silly and NR-like. The present non-system denies care to the poorer classes, and imposes financial strain on others. The privileged do all right under it, yes. All goods are rationed. Sure health care should not be rationed based purely on ability to pay like a flatscreen TV or a pedicure but if you remove the cost of health care entirely, there are negative consequences. Healthcare is not like any other program. Nothing else can bankrupt our nation within a generation or two aside from health care done wrong. The level of care afforded to those who pay nothing should achieve some minimum standards but trying to level the playing field by nationalizing healthcare and making some relatively high standard of care free for everyone and leaving no room for private health care insurance seems economically unsustainable. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/926 "2016-02-24T16:28:56Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > I’m not happy with the rationing that comes with the free market system. My wife needed a stem cell transplant, but the death panel at Blue Cross/Blue Shield said no. She’s dead now. Sorry for your troubles but do you really think that a universal health care system would be more generous than blue cross/blue shield? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/927 "2016-02-24T16:30:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Of course universal health care isn’t a free lunch. There Ain’t No Such Thing, after all. But it’s a cheaper lunch, and if we’re going to have to eat lunch anyway, it might as well be the cheap one instead of the expensive one. > > Universal health care keeps some people healthier than Capitalism Care, and it’s cheaper for everyone. It’s win-win. Yes, its more cost efficient. But the premium we pay also ensures that we have the best doctors, the best drugs, the best facilities… if you can afford it. So perhaps some base level of health care for everyone plus capitalism care for people who want or can afford more? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/928 "2016-02-24T16:39:40Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I think the private sector would LOVE to take that challenge, provided the public system doesn’t enjoy a bailout guarantee if it runs out of money. If it runs out of money, it dies, just like a private company. Actuarially, its not that hard as long as you don’t count the people who currently qualify for medicare because its really the geezers that fuck it up for everyone. If private insurance companies had to cover current medicare patients, they would cost a lot more than medicare currently does for the same benefits. We know this because we have meidcare part C for long enough to know that they cannot provide the same benefit for the same money as medicare. > [@](#): > > Also, administrative costs can’t be offloaded onto another federal agency as with Medicare. Medicare fraud is not investigated by CMS, but by the FBI. A new single payer system would have to have responsibility to do its own fraud investigations. CMS has people that try to detect Medicare fraud, just like some private insurance companies. Medicare refers those instances to the FBI (just like private insurance companies refer their fraud cases to the police). What medicare doesn’t do is underwriting or a lot of claims adjustment. > [@](#): > > Gotta have those conditions, because it’s easy for public companies to outcompete private companies when they get all kinds of aid that private companies don’t have access to. If there are assets already in place that makes the federal government better equipped to do this, then why wouldn’t you let them take advantage of their competitive advantages? > [@](#): > > Oh, and in case it wasn’t obvious, premiums have to cover 100% of the single payer system’s costs. No supplementing it with general revenue. This is pretty easy to achieve in the pre-medicare crowd. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/929 "2016-02-24T17:08:18Z")
An excellent take down of Bernie’s rants about big banks. [Dear Bernie: I Like You, But These Red Flags Are Too Frequent to Ignore | HuffPost Latest News](http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/dear-bernie-red-flags-frequent_b_9289954.html)? Glass-Steagall did not cause the financial crisis. I also agree completely that the ‘audit the fed’ nonsense is dangerous. It has turned every Fed chair appearance in front of congress as nothing but political potshots taken at the fed to appeal to low information voters ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/930 "2016-02-24T17:12:54Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > I also agree completely that the ‘audit the fed’ nonsense is dangerous. 😕 Why would **auditing** the Fed be dangerous? ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/931 "2016-02-24T17:28:45Z")
Did you read the article? There is already an audit of the Federal Reserve. “Audit the Fed” types on the far left and right are pandering to the low information types who have an irrational fear of central banking. > **[board-financial-statements-2014-2013-mar2015.pdf](https://oig.federalreserve.gov/reports/board-financial-statements-2014-2013-mar2015.pdf)** > > 1801.91 KB ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/932 "2016-02-24T19:13:49Z")
Yeah, to me it comes across as Ron Paul, goldbug eccentricity. Andrew Jackson would approve, that fucking piece of shit. > [@adaher](#): > > Oh, and in case it wasn’t obvious, premiums have to cover 100% of the single payer system’s costs. No supplementing it with general revenue. That’s definitely not obvious to me. I don’t even think of single payer as having premiums. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/933 "2016-02-24T21:53:31Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 😕 Why would **auditing** the Fed be dangerous? Because the “audit the fed” people are really trying to politicize the fed and subject the fed to political pressure. This is dangerous. If it was up to the congress, they would have interfered with the Fed and tried very hard to stop quantitative easing because it was helping the recovery while Obama was still president. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/934 "2016-02-24T22:15:35Z")
Great point. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/935 "2016-02-25T10:27:47Z")
Here’s a really interesting [column](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/25/opinion/campaign-stops/clinton-sanders-and-southern-voters.html?_r=0) with insight into why Bernie may find such tough sledding among Southern black voters: > [@](#): > > Black voters are not monolithic and of one mind. There are a hundred ways to analyze the factions within the black community, but I want to highlight one cleavage I find particularly relevant to discussing the overwhelming disparity in support for Clinton over Sanders. > > There isn’t one black America, but two: The children of the Great Migration and the children of those who stayed behind in the South. (Black immigrants are another story.) Having spent the first half of my life in the South and the second in Great Migration destination cities, I can attest that the sensibilities are as different as night and day. > > There is a scene described in the Stanley Nelson’s fascinating documentary “Freedom Summer” about an integrated delegation from Mississippi to be seated at the 1964 Democratic Convention instead of the all-white one. > > At one point, Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. of New York is dispatched to the integrated delegation to persuade them to accept a pathetic compromise to remedy the standoff between the delegations. > > Powell reportedly said to Fannie Lou Hamer, a member of the integrated delegation, “You don’t know who I am, do you?” Hamer responded, “Yeah, I know who you are. You are Adam Clayton Powell.” She continued, “But how many bales of cotton have you picked? How many beatings have you taken?” > > It was her way of telling her Northern brother not to dictate what those in the South should do or how they should think. > > Southerners in general bristle at this idea that they must be steered, that they can’t set their own course. They don’t want to be told that their abundance of caution is a deficit of imagination. And, they don’t want to be told, “Once you just learn about Bernie, you’ll like him and realize he’s the best candidate for you.” > > My sense of it is that charge would be met with a question that frames things in precisely the opposite way: How is it that a person could be 74 years old, spend his life championing my interests and spend decades as a politician, and I not know him? Why is it that I’ve never seen him here in the South? > > Indeed, Sanders’s compelling narrative on civil rights advocacy is strangely devoid of Southern touchstones. He was arrested in Chicago, traveled to the March on Washington, and held honorable positions on race and social justice while mayor of Burlington, Vt., and a member of Congress. > > A bit of advice: It would behoove Sanders to include in his stump speeches travels to the South to advocate for civil rights before this election cycle, assuming there are such forays, so that no one assumes he’s a Bernie-come-lately. > > As it stands, a life of advocacy above the Mason Dixon Line can feel like pale tea for black folks who’ve lived their whole lives below it. > > Clinton, on the other hand, although born in Chicago, spent nearly two decades in Arkansas, much of that time serving as first lady of the state and working on education and children’s issues. She also talks about traveling to Alabama, undercover, in 1972 for Marian Wright Edelman to gather evidence that segregated Southern academies there were discriminating on the basis of race. There was no arrest, but Southerners recognize that even in that year, that was a gutsy move. > > Sanders, unlike Clinton, doesn’t even appear to have many prominent black Southern surrogates. > > Aside from Killer Mike, the Georgia rapper who has been an eloquent and effective spokesman for Sanders, particularly among younger black voters, the lion’s share of Sanders’s most prominent black surrogates are people not from the South: Keith Ellison, the congressman from Minnesota; Nina Turner, the former Ohio state senator; Ben Jealous, the California-born former executive officer of the N.A.A.C.P.; Danny Glover, the California-born actor; Harry Belafonte, the Harlem-born stage and screen star. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/936 "2016-02-26T02:48:33Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > If there are assets already in place that makes the federal government better equipped to do this, then why wouldn’t you let them take advantage of their competitive advantages? That’s fine I guess, but just don’t call it competing or the government being better at providing health care services. The government could just as easily put all the grocery stores out of business by being the sole legal supermarket owner. Just call them all “Obamamarts” and undersell even Wal-mart. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/937 "2016-02-26T04:50:25Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > That’s fine I guess, but just don’t call it competing or the government being better at providing health care services. The government could just as easily put all the grocery stores out of business by being the sole legal supermarket owner. Just call them all “Obamamarts” and undersell even Wal-mart. I’ve been advocating for the government to do this for years. But they wouldn’t put other stores out of business, because it would be just healthy food at low prices (and you could only use your food stamps there). I do want to see the feds put payday loan and check cashing places out of business, though, by offering the same services much cheaper at the post office. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/938 "2016-02-26T06:24:43Z")
Quoting a NYTimes opinion column endorsing Clinton, based on differences between regions in \*1964, \*is laughable. Bad enough Hillary is playing to a the fantasies of Gloria Steinem in 1972, now she wants to go back to 1964? OK, lady. Can we look at her record in the South in the 1980’s and in Washington in the 1990’s? Which is at least credibly relevant? I get that Bernie is only now starting to talk much about race now because he finally realizes he has to do so. It’s a real problem for him. But the real difference between the two is on class, and Hillary is so far to the wrong side on that that she might lose to Donald Trump if she were, in some disaster of misjudgment, somehow nominated. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/939 "2016-02-26T06:26:52Z")
I don’t suggest she go back to 1964. She supported Goldwater that year. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754/940 "2016-02-26T06:29:26Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’ve been advocating for the government to do this for years. But they wouldn’t put other stores out of business, because it would be just healthy food at low prices (and you could only use your food stamps there). > > I do want to see the feds put payday loan and check cashing places out of business, though, by offering the same services much cheaper at the post office. Which is fine, as long as the program has to fund itself. That’s how you find out if it’s actually gouging, or just the cost of issuing such loans. Anytime a government is offering a service that the private sector already offers, it should compete on the same terms. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754.md?page=46) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2016-bernie-sanders-d-vt-campaign-for-potus-thread/718754.md?page=48)