# The stampede to, and then from, single payer **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 8, 2019, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stampede-to-and-then-from-single-payer/844553 "2019-12-08T09:48:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2019, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stampede-to-and-then-from-single-payer/844553/21 "2019-12-12T02:07:02Z")
How does the investor class benefit from a sicker America? ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2019, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stampede-to-and-then-from-single-payer/844553/22 "2019-12-12T04:56:38Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > How does the investor class benefit from a sicker America? **Wesley Clark** answered that in the post before mine. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2019, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stampede-to-and-then-from-single-payer/844553/23 "2019-12-12T05:15:41Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > How does the investor class benefit from a sicker America? They benefit from an overpriced health care system. If that system is brutal and evil and makes them sicker, so be it. There is no path to genuine health reform that doesn’t involve filling the rich and powerful with rage. Its just not possible. True health reform requires competition, transparency, price controls, government intervention, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2019, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stampede-to-and-then-from-single-payer/844553/24 "2019-12-12T17:04:14Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > There’s also simply that the public doesn’t want to pay for it. The public pays for it now. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2019, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stampede-to-and-then-from-single-payer/844553/25 "2019-12-12T17:13:13Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > They benefit from an overpriced health care system. If that system is brutal and evil and makes them sicker, so be it. > > There is no path to genuine health reform that doesn’t involve filling the rich and powerful with rage. Its just not possible. True health reform requires competition, transparency, price controls, government intervention, etc. It’s not being pedantic to point out, that’s not the same thing at all as benefiting from a sicker America. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2019, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stampede-to-and-then-from-single-payer/844553/26 "2019-12-12T22:49:46Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > The public pays for it now. Paying via private funds for more brutal, more expensive health care makes us free, paying via taxes for cheaper, more humane health care makes us slaves. Or so the media outlets funded by the health industry say. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stampede-to-and-then-from-single-payer/844553/27 "2019-12-13T00:03:09Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > [https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/05/medicare-for-all-2020-democratic-primary-075034](https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/05/medicare-for-all-2020-democratic-primary-075034) > > In the end, the only politicians that demonstrated that they actually had principles were Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. The rest of them were all for single payer and then when that didn’t work out for them began to beat a retreat. This is why the old farts are winning: because the young bucks have no principles and are only seeking to position themselves. And they weren’t even good at it. What you call “no principles”, I call “responsive to the electorate”. I want politicians to be flexible when they hear us. The politicians with ossified positions aren’t going to listen to us because they think they already know the answers. > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > The democrats are pussies who are terrified of the rich and terrified of republican voters. They don’t really respect or fear their own voters though, so even if 80% of democrats want health reform, we aren’t getting it anytime soon via legislation. Democratic politicians ridicule and ignore their own voters, but they are terrified of making rich people and republicans mad. And there is no legit path to health reform that avoids making rich people and republicans mad (the ACA was a compromise to expand coverage without pissing off the rich or republicans). So the voters have to do it themselves via ballot initiative the same way they did with marijuana. Democratic politicians can only be as strong as their support from voters is. As 2016 showed, too many people who would vote Democrat if they bothered simply didn’t bother. And 2018 showed what happens if some of them do. Reliable voters make reliable politicians. Right now Republican politicians are terrified because they think the Trumpists will vote them out. Voters who seem to vote reliably. (Note that your genitalia-based insult weakens your position.) ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stampede-to-and-then-from-single-payer/844553/28 "2019-12-13T03:33:43Z")
Responsive to the electorate is good, but the electorate doesn’t turn on a dime. If you’re flip flopping around during a campaign, then you’re just looking for a position rather than having a position that voters can trust you’ll stick to when it counts. If the Dem field was being responsive to the electorate they’d all be crowding around Joe Biden’s plan rather than Bernie Sanders’. They chose poorly and now that ship has sailed. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stampede-to-and-then-from-single-payer/844553/29 "2019-12-13T03:51:23Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Democratic politicians can only be as strong as their support from voters is. As 2016 showed, too many people who would vote Democrat if they bothered simply didn’t bother. And 2018 showed what happens if some of them do. Reliable voters make reliable politicians. > > Right now Republican politicians are terrified because they think the Trumpists will vote them out. Voters who seem to vote reliably. > > (Note that your genitalia-based insult weakens your position.) Up until recently the democrats have been able to take their voters for granted. But luckily the democratic voters are starting to support using primaries as a tool to intimidate politicians. The democrats won big in 2006 and 2008, and for the most part didn’t use the power given to them. When they did they passed tepid half measures designed to not offend the oligarchs. Democrats controlled something like 20-30 state houses and governorships in 2009 and 2010, did democrats really do anything with that power? Because the GOP did when they started winning (gun control rollbacks, voter suppression, anti-abortion laws, etc). Democratic politicians are trying to walk a tightrope of pretending to support legislation that offends the rich, while not actually passing any of it into law. Maybe a few more election cycles of primaries from the left will force the democratic party to actually listen to their voters. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stampede-to-and-then-from-single-payer/844553/30 "2019-12-13T04:43:11Z")
They need to listen to all voters. One of the parties needs to find a principled centrism. If Joe Biden has a successful Presidency, the Democrats might start seeing a pattern. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stampede-to-and-then-from-single-payer/844553/31 "2019-12-13T06:13:20Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > There’s also simply that the public doesn’t want to pay for it. Is this a typo? Didn’t you mean “the public has been brainwashed into not understanding that its costs will decrease.” ? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-stampede-to-and-then-from-single-payer/844553.md?page=1)