I’d like to see Patrick do well, maybe even get the nomination. Not so much because of any particular liking I have for him (though I think he’d be a fine choice). But the reason I’d like to see him pull it off is to put an end to this notion that you have to start a campaign 10-12 months out from the first actual votes being cast in an actual primary or risk being left behind. These things drag on too long, it’s like Christmas - it starts earlier every fucking year.
Yes, I would get behind a real MfA plan. Sanders plan is unrealistic and goes too far- and I hate that he called it MfA, since it *ain’t. *
I don’t understand this at all. Deval Patrick has no name recognition, he doesn’t have some stellar achievement that will wow people, he won’t be included in any debates, and he spent the last five years cashing in at Mitt Romney’s company.
I’ve seen some conspiracy theorizing about how this is a plot by [insert enemy] to hurt [favorite candidate], but that also makes zero sense. Is it just some scam cooked up by a consultant? Someone blew smoke up his ass telling him he’d be a great candidate, thinking all of the Bain bros would give him money that could be skimmed?
AYFKM?!
Who’s advocating for nationalized health care under the rubric of Medicare for All? AFAICT, nobody of note is saying the government should own the hospitals and employ the doctors directly.
Hell, few public figures are even pointing out that hospital conglomerates have become big and extremely profitable private businesses, and right now are the low-hanging fruit for cutting health care-related costs.
So he’s attacking other candidates for…what? Moving towards it faster than he’d like??
Sorry, but fuck that shit.
Feel free to fuck whatever shit gives you consent. MfA has nothing to do with Medicare. It eliminates Medicare.
Some care about that shit and want more than a fuck only relationship with it.
This healthcare debate that the candidates are mired in is bizarre. None of these distinctions matter. They might as well be debating how many angels can dance on top of the head of a pin (It would be more entertaining at least). Whether it’s Biden’s plan or Bernie’s plan, none of them are getting past Cocaine Mitch. If by some miracle the Democrats take back the Senate, the fillibuster and the Joe Manchins of the world will serve as the roadblocks instead.
Someone, anyone, needs to stand on that debate stage and explain how they are getting all this wonderful shit through the Senate. No, “I will bring back bipartisanship to DC” is not an answer, it is a delusion. “I will somehow crowd source a revolution” is not an answer either. Neither is “I will use executive orders to being forth a new Utopia.”
Give us an example of what would be a real answer.
The bare minimum is getting rid of the filibuster.
I mean, obviously the best thing to do is to use every ounce of political capital to give DC and Puerto Rico statehood at the very least. If there were some US territory with a bunch of Republican voters somewhere, it would’ve been made a state years ago.
More radically, tie the amount of senators a state gets to the population it has.
If these aren’t realistic solutions, then they shouldn’t bother discussing the nuances of their various plans at all. They should try writing fanfic for the next season of the West Wing instead, because these “plans” are just as farfetched.
Is this your first Presidential election? Candidates always promise things that require legislation. And your inability to even give a realistic example on the how, shows why they don’t explain it. Not a single one of your examples falls under the president’s power.
So let’s go back to pretending a President Biden or a President Warren or a President Whoever (D) won’t be completely & immediately hamstrung by an irredeemable and archaic political system originally designed to solely benefit pre-Industrial age slave owners who shat in chamber pots, gotcha.
Someone needs to stop BSing and actually be realistic about the path this country is on, and why nothing can be changed until we drastically fix our electoral system and cleanse the rot in our government. Anything else is just fanfic for activists and political junkies.
If the Democrats with the election, the first priority should be the statehood of PR and DC. If they have the Senate, they might be able to do this with a simple majority in both houses of Congress. If the process is challenged, then let the courts decide, but this should be the priority since so many other things will need a solid majority in the Senate.
Cite, please?
You’ve already falsely claimed that M4A really means nationalized health care. Now just today, Warren said that the first step towards her M4A plan would be to lower the Medicare age to 50, and create a Medicare buy-in for everyone else.
That’s a funny way to eliminate Medicare.
So yeah, I need a cite.
You’re right - we shouldn’t consider the possibility that a President might have the support of the vast majority of his or her party. :rolleyes:
pjacks is absolutely correct that, even with the full cooperation of his/her own party, the President will be unable to bring back bipartisanship to DC, or crowd source a revolution, or use executive orders to being forth a new Utopia.
pjacks is also correct that, unless the Dems win the Senate, and a Democratic President can win the cooperation of the members of his own party to kill the filibuster, the President won’t be able to accomplish much at all. I’d add that the result of that would be that 2022 would be another massacre of Congressional Democrats.
Nobody’s saying the President can wave a magic wand and get rid of the filibuster by him/herself. But there is no route to meaningful change that doesn’t pass through the removal of the filibuster.
That means “a realistic example on the how” involves how to bring about the end of the filibuster. There is no guaranteed way to do this; it’s just a matter of which way you think has the best prospects.
I would claim that the plan with the best chance of success would be a combination of (a) the nomination of a Presidential candidate who will advocate for the removal of the filibuster, combined with (b) people with Democratic Senators calling and writing them to advocate the removal of the filibuster.
If you’ve got a more realistic alternative, feel free to share it with us.
I think I’ve told you a billion times that I agree the filibuster might have to go for any progress and also that I don’t think the President’s endorsement of removing the filibuster means anything. How many times do we need this conversation?
“If you’ve got a more realistic alternative, feel free to share it with us.”
The floor is yours.
Who put you in charge of the floor?
The thing is, your filibuster fixation is a magic wand. It’s removal will only make things better during the brief periods you hold the Senate. It may solve some gridlock but I’m not seeing how even medium term it’s a net positive for the Dems.
What am I exactly supposed to be finding a "realistic alternative " for?
She’s now just completely reversing course, or being completely incoherent … not sure which.
Medicare right now has virtually no overlap with what is proposed as MfA. Medicare is not a Canadian-style system and the huge improvements in quality outcomes and costthat have occurred in Medicare have mostly occurred in the rapidly growing Medicare Advantage slice, subbed out to private insurance companies.
Pretty much every analysis, including the most favorable, of MfA recognizes that it “would largely sunset Medicare and Medicaid” - it’s not something that is really in dispute.
What she is saying TODAY is that what she will actually DO is support the ACA and begin an expansion of actual Medicare as an option to those over 50, and work for the new single payer as an option for those under 50. (Free for those under 18 and those at or below 200% of the federal poverty level.) THEN in year three she says she’ll fight for getting through the elimination of Medicare and Medicaid and replacing everything with the new plan, on the presumption that in that short time “the American people will have experienced the full benefits of a true Medicare for All option, and they can see for themselves how that experience stacks up”
While unrealistic in the timeline and some other details this is a much better approach, and is where I had hoped she would go in the first place - endorsing the longer vision of a single payer system but recognizing that the best way to get there is not elimination of all that the ACA has accomplished overnight and all that works to many people’s great satisfaction in Medicare and even private plans overnight, but expanding Medicare, offering a buy-in to a public option, and outcompeting the privates in the marketplace. She is at least now pulling back towards that direction.
That current improved course correction does not however reverse the poor judgement she showed by her full all in embrace of the more revolutionary approach that was predicated on a false painting the ACA as a failure, and does not change the fact that if at some point the new plan became the plan for all without any option it would do so by eliminating actual Medicare and replacing it.
It is I think more of a reaction to Buttigieg’s more moderate positions having him doing so well in Iowa. What she proposes now is more on Biden’s and Buttigieg’s page than on Sanders’, even as she promises that she will go there as the plan proves itself to the public within the term. She thought she needed to firm up her progressive cred and she is now seeing that she may have tacked too hard. I think she’s reacting to Patrick’s entry as well.
IOW, Warren slipped on a puddle of Billionaire tears. 