If 1 person loses insurance, but 100 people save $1, is that worth it? if those 100 people save $1K each, is that worth it? The problem I see with type of analysis above is that it only looks at portion of the impacts. And while I think it’s fair to focus on the loss of insurance, especially if you are among the group that would be impacted, a better analysis would measure more than that.
The CBO said Obamacare would reduce the deficit by $119B over ten years, the CBO says the latest plan would reduce the deficit by $330B over ten years. Which of those assertions is indisputable?
Somebody promised me that Obamacare would reduce the average family’s premiums by $2500 a year. Is that indisputable?
Regards,
Shodan
We’re getting into debate territory of the ACA vs. AHCA. There are plenty of other threads that address this more directly. However, there is evidence that Trump supporters stand as much to lose (maybe more) from the repeal of the ACA.
I’m wondering if this isn’t a good example of common ground for both sides?
Anybody?..
As a factual matter, has anyone even made the claim that AHCA would increase health care coverage?
Paul Ryan has spoken about how it is fairer not to force young, healthy people to buy insurance. I’m not going to argue about his principles in why he sees this as a good thing; but he seems to be acknowledging that many young people will simply drop their insurance coverage because it is no longer required and they don’t wish to pay for it.
I think that’s a pretty clear indication that Paul Ryan thinks millions of people will choose to become uninsured should this bill pass. Again, he may think that this is good thing, but it seems to me to be a perfectly clear indication that coverage rates will decline.
Not really debating the efficacy of one over the other. You are trying to convey the impact of policy support to those who may not appreciate how it affects those that may lose coverage. A worthwhile effort.
The converse also applies - looking only at those that may lose coverage misses the other side of the equation. Do you not also want to know how those that support repeal or are opposed to the ACA assess the situation?
Fair point. As I’ve noted earlier, I’m coming at it as someone who is very much in favour of UHC. Thus, anything that reduces the number of people covered, whether through being dropped, not being able to afford it, or freedom of choice to opt out, is a bad thing for society in general.
I’m certainly open to hearing alternative views.
So, republicans consider an “acceptable level of suffering” to be higher than what you consider to be acceptable.
We just have to determine how much suffering is “acceptable”, and how much “misfortune can be alleviated.”
Yes.
Well, if we are negotiating, then I start by saying that suffering should be as minimal as technology can allow, and misfortune should be alleviated enough that all people are able to live a life without deprivation and with dignity.
Of course, republicans consider suffering differently, and seem to consider themselves having to pay taxes to be equivalent of someone else dying painfully of treatable conditions, and only seem to care about alleviating misfortune when it befalls themselves, so I would guess that their starting negotiating point would be a tad less comprehensive.
I would assume that all things being fair, we’d end up somewhere in the middle, where there is less but still a substantial amount of unnecessary suffering to those less fortunate. Things are not equal, however, with the republicans controlling substantial parts of the government, so those who wish to see less suffering in society are at a disadvantage to those who have done well for themselves and wish to contribute less to the society that has allowed them to flourish.
So I’m a fan of Trump’s stance on H1B. Or at least, Steve Bannon’s stance.
Yes, Trump is a paranoid con man who may actually be deteriorating from a mental illness (he’s certainly old enough for it), explaining his odd rants.
But for his 9 major faults and ways he’s going to screw up life for everyone else, if he gives me the one thing I want, I’ll be tepidly supportive. I want him to reform H1B so that the highest paying employers go to the front of the line and to raise the minimum salary and index it to inflation. Also, remove the Master’s loophole. This would make life better for me personally - there would be less competition driving down salaries, I wouldn’t have to compete with as many H1Bs who lie on their resumes and thus have more credentials on paper than I have, and companies don’t get to hire someone for $60k who will work 80 hours a week so they don’t get deported.
He’s a con man, though, and he may or may not get around to delivering on this particular promise. I know he won’t go out of his way to trade political favors for it, but if a bill were passed, I think he’d sign.
Anyways, my perspective isn’t unique. There a lot of Trump supporters who voted for him, expecting him to deliver on one promise or another they have cherry picked out of all the things he has said. I think most of them actively annoy his other faults or embrace them - he’s a paranoid con man, but he’s on my side!
I suspect most Trump supporters are going to be disappointed when he lets them all down.
If I may ask, did you actually vote for Trump based on this single issue?
In my state, it was irrelevant. (it’s a deep red state) I was only mildly displeased when he was elected since maybe this one issue will break my way.
I mean, it was a crushing blow for logic and reason and progress in America. It’s a huge step backwards in most ways. And ironically what I want is basically a union job for educated people.
I’m guessing you and I are in a similar line of business - IT consultants (independents).
I have similar misgivings about the H1B visa program.
As Breitbart* points out, H1B workers are not “just” making the $60k. There’s an American citizenship, which is a lifetime boost to their earnings, stapled onto the job offer. $60k ain’t much for a job that requires this much concentration, mental agility, and constant updating to your skills, either. (referring to systems and embedded developer positions). A big chunk of what I knew back in 2004 when I graduates is now archaic and no longer in use. The primary languages are different. The libraries are all different. The styles in use are different. It’s all different.
To even be worth going through the hassle of going to school for 4-5 years+ and racking up the bills involved, it’s gotta pay 60-110k to really be worth the hassle. Otherwise, why not become a nurse or electrician or some easier route?
*Yes, Breitbart is not a great source but their logic is sound.
A nursing degree is no cake walk anymore. A bachelor’s degree is now required to become an RN. It’s a tough program to get into now and requires you maintain a 3.5 average.
Don’t know about the electricians, plumbers or other skilled tradesmen.
But we digress… Obviously there is room for agreement around some issues. Which is what this thread is about.
Nonsense. This assumes that a) there was no rational reason to vote for Trump and b) your understanding of Trump matched the Trump voters understanding.
For point a)
An example. You don’t like Clintons policies but believe she will be effective in implementing them. You don’t like Trumps policies either, but believe that he will be ineffective in implementing them. Who do you vote for?
It is entirely rational to vote for Trump in this situation. In fact, most of the Trump voters I know followed reasoning similar to this. It wasn’t ‘Yay Trump!’ but rather ‘Lesser of two evils!’. (Note, I voted third party) This is even more rational if you believed, as the media was pushing quite hard, that Clinton and the Ds were going to win in a giant landslide of epic proportions.
Of course, you can keep on with your attitude and call all the Trump voters stooopid and watch the Democrats crawl further into the abyss.
Regarding b) Trump voters took Trump seriously but not literally. Those who opposed Trump took him literally but not seriously. I suspect that both are in for a bit of a shock over the next few years.
Nonsense again. You are mixing Trumps statements with voters beliefs. You cannot know the voters beliefs unless you speak with them, something you seem incapable of doing because you are too intent on calling them all stoopid. So you are guessing as to why they support the policy. It is entirely rational to vote for Trump if you believe immigration controls need to be tighter even if you know Trump is full of shit on the violent crime aspect. Why? Because the policy goal is the same even though Trump is lying. Note, I am in the Milton Freedman camp on immigration.
Trump lies, no doubt. A while ago I posted a thread (or maybe a post in someone else thread) with the idea that anytime a politician lies they ought to be kicked out on their ass. This idea, though I imagine it would be popular now, was roundly denounced. I still stand by it. However, lies in politics are nothing new and both sides have sheltered lying politicians to the point where if the guy or gal doing the lying is on ‘your’ side, the lies are ignored. At the same time, lies from the other side are the biggest lies in history.
However, it appear to me that to many Trump voters Trumps lies are taken as policy indicators instead of actual truths. See point b above.
The bullshit sandwiches are handed out by both sides on a regular basis. Obama with
Or FDR with
Bush the first with
And you know what? That is our fault for not holding politicians to the standard that they ought to be held.
Slee
First of all, there were an estimated 11 to 12 million people killed by the Nazi regime; in addition to practicing and non-practicing Jews, they also persecuted Roma (gypsies), homosexuals, Communists and alleged sympathizers, homosexuals, and disabled people; essentially, groups that could be easily identified and marginalized.
Second, if you will take the time to read what I wrote–the very words you bolded–you’ll see that I didn’t compare Trump supporters to Nazis in any way, shape, or form or assign them blame for the deportations or deaths of anyone. I didn’t even call or imply that Trump or the people in his administration were like Nazis. What I did say was that the tactics they are using to silence disagreement and undermine public confidence in government were essentially the same as those used by the propaganda arm of the Nazi party, with a couple of specific observations to support the claim. I don’t know whether you agree or disagree with this statement since you immediately went to “That’s not fair!” mode but a simple reading of the history of the downfall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism in pre-WWII Germany will show the clear analogues such as appeals to previous nationalistic and ethnic “greatness”, courting extremist groups, playing up unemployment and economic hardship to sew unrest, making and then denying demonstrably inaccurate claims (“gaslighting”), denying the legitimacy of the judiciary, making broad claims of patently fake conspiracies against him, and scapegoating entire classes of the population as “undesirables” responsible for crime and terror without merit. Citing Godwin’s Law as some kind of evidence of fallacy is apt only if the comparisons are inaccurate or untrue.
And with respect to the otherwise meritable and benevolent effort by the o.p.; when you are entering into a debate in which the position of one side is not stated in terms of some factual or evidentiary basis, but instead comes from deceptions, bombast, innuendo, and the kind of fearmongering and race-baiting that the Trump campaign relied on from its very beginning, the notion of having “some sort of common ground” to have an open and honest discussion is given lie to. I’m sure many Trump supporters believe themselves to not be racist or sexist, and believe that their “plain spoken” champion is merely defying the supposed conventions of “political correctness”, but objectively, Trump has courted openly racist groups and advisors, has espoused misogynism beyond the infamous “Grab them by the pussy,” scandal, has flagrantly lied about his desire to “drain the swamp” or intent to release tax returns, and is just factually incorrect on so many other issues on which his vaguely defined policy statements and positions are based that there is nowhere to even begin to discuss what Trump might or might not actually do. We can only observe his behavior and actions, and assume that followers tacitly approve of them even if only as peccadilloes of an otherwise capable executive who represents the aggregate interest of the public.
In other words, if you support a racist, misogynistic, fear-mongering Internet conspiracy theorist whose hypocrisy extends to the point of claiming that factual reiterations of his own statements are “fake news”, you have leant your approval to his actions even if you don’t believe these terms to apply to your own behavior.
A bachelor’s degree has been required to become a registered nurse for decades, the role requires a significant degree of literacy, and RN programs have always had more applicants than spaces. There is a great demand for skilled “hard hands” trades such as electricians, plumbers, welders, pipefitters, carpenters, et cetera, to the extent that many businesses are concerned about the deportation of immigrants who are willing and able to do this honest, hard, and often well-paying work leaving a gulf of qualified workers. Mike Rowe (of the Dirty Jobs fame) has campaigned extensively and even testified before Congress on the need for skilled workers in the skilled trades, which incidentally often pay as well as many white collar positions, are consistently in demand, and are not readily replaceable with automation in the manner that assembly line jobs are. A program to genuinely deal with localized unemployment in manufacturing, logging, and mining should focus on retraining and providing the necessary support for workers to relocate to the places where these skills are in demand.
Yes, this would require that people move out of the faltering coal mining communities, or that communities restructure around new industries. But guess what? The ancestors of these people endured great hardship, often to the point of illness and death, to locate to these regions to do what was then the backbreaking manual labor these jobs required before machinery was used to speed productivity and protect workers from hazard. The people expecting Trump to bring back coal mining or manufacturing jobs “from overseas” are actually petulantly demanding one of the biggest government entitlement programs of all, i.e. for the United States to insulate itself economically, turn its back on the wealth of labor and resources we receive at steep discount from other nations seeking to climb the ladder of economic prosperity, and engage in the never-successful actions of massive protective trade tariffs, large physical and legal barriers to immigration, and the technological and intellectual stagnation that inevitably follows.
Stranger
It’s not obvious to me. Supporting Trump requires a fundamentally different mindset. It requires a morality where most bad guys in movies are actually good guys, since Trump is a stereotypical movie villain.
Or it requires a fundamentally different view of what is factual, essentially not believing any of the evil things Trump did, and believing every evil thing they said Clinton did.
And then there’s one big issue–even if I found that one thing, I’d be disinclined to do it. Because, unlike every other President, this one is evil. And thus my priority is in stopping him. Helping his supporters achieve their goals is contrary to this.
And, yes, I know this was an anti-Obama tactic, too, and I hated it. But that’s because I do not believe there is any argument to prove Obama was evil. His politics may not be what you agree with, but he wasn’t evil.
It’s a simple distinction, and it’s not one I think can be subjective. There is some disagreement about morality, but, in the broad strokes, we agree. And Trump is evil. And, possibly more importantly, he’s incredibly stupid. He may have certain skills, but he is incapable of intellectual thought.
Our country is in the most danger it has been in at least a century and remains so as long as Trump is in charge of the military. Yes, even more than the World Wars, as they didn’t make it over here.
To me, being anti-Trump means that nothing Trump supports can succeed. The status quo is not so bad that I need to make a deal with the devil. (metaphor–not calling Trump supporters devils.)
I tend to disagree. I don’t think the Trumpster is evil so much as self-centered, vastly ignorant, subconsciously racist, and extremely gullible. He’s the personification of his base.
Bannon, on the other hand, is Iago to a T.
So I am supposed to find ground with the “fuck you” candidate, and his fuck you voters, who will only answer in response to any question fuck you because fuck you, unless they want something from you in which case they lie and say fuck you when asked to explain the lie?