American Politics Thread 2013: I'm a cool Rodham grandma in the USA

the messenger's already dead

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/rasmussen-polls-were-biased-and-inaccurate-quinnipiac-surveyusa-performed-strongly/?_r=0

http://www.examiner.com/article/rasmussen-reports-polls-get-the-election-really-really-wrong

always a good rule of thumb to take "conservative" talk in general with a grain of salt imho

agree that rasmussen's been a joke in the polling industry for at least a decade. still don is correct re:
I am sure plenty of americans support medicare for all and also believe the government is too involved in american health care

get your government hands off my medicare

always knew "iatee" was a sock, just wasn't sure who the puppetmaster was

nobody in the democratic party believes that the ACA was supposed to be the end game for american health care

xp

waht

I am teasing Shakey for making a post that looks like a misattribution of a quote

haha okay

Rasmussen's polling data for how the majority of Americans feel about single payer healthcare is barely deviant (if at all) from every other pollster. Or am I wrong about that? As Shakey pointed out, that's not really my point anyway.

Shakey the theory on single payer has been the "slippery slope" theory that conservatives have been advancing since, like, FDR.

(they use it for everything)

so you're saying that in this case their right? even if iatee is correct that Dems have a longer-term goal than ACA I don't see how they pass single payer, they couldn't get it done with both houses of congress AND a president with a huge mandate, neither of which they're going to have again in the next few election cycles.

don said in his lifetime

As I've noted here, I think the way in is by expanding Medicare. The system is already in place. They can re-name it, fake tweak it, and unleash it.

and yes, hopefully I'll live another 40 years or so.

I'm imagining FDR on a slippery slope – shit's dangerous!

don i'm curious what conservatives have against single-payer. i've never gotten a straight answer that would stand up. it's too expensive? it makes health care worse? it diminishes work ethic? it's bad for the economy? the american government (which should be drowned in a bathtub) can't be trusted to oversee health care? gut feeling? death panels?

It's socialism!!

The real answer: decoupling health care from employment means lazy people who don't make as much money as I do will get health care they don't deserve.

aahh, the old 'privilege versus right' binary

I can't really speak for all of them, or really any of them but typically those are the reasons. The economic concept of scarcity usually is thrown into the mix early. Reform efforts are perceived to be very difficult once the beast is unleashed...i.e. the biggest third rail of politics ever invented.

Also, a big one is that it creates a dependent voting class...which in this case usually means people will never "vote against their own self interest" or some such. And in this case, locks in a permanent Democratic majority. Or so the argument goes, anyway.

it will cost the gov't a lot of money to run it (oh no the taxes!), and they will do it badly (ie worse than the private sector)

xp

creates a dependent voting class.

this has never made sense to me. there are tons - TONS - of Social Security-receiving people that vote for the GOP, for ex.

I mean, after a certain point gov't programs do not become associated with either party and are just taken for granted, they don't influence votes either way

so don conservatives assume a priori it'll be an unwieldy beast . . . unlike, say, war in iraq? and to alfred's point, it says a lot about conservative projection that they assume people don't want to work for the sake of work, but are in it for the bennies

they also prevent the gop from 'reforming' ss etc. xp

Republicans seem well on their way to reforming the SS *rimshot*

The word "dependent" is so much bullshit. WE ARE ALL DEPENDENT ON THE GOVERNMENT TO DO THE THINGS THAT IT DOES. The small fluctuations in our levels of dependency between people and over time are MINUTE compared to, I dunno, not having government.

I'm with wide-eyed Sully: the threat of penalties will make everyone who needs to sign up for health care at the last minute, so the numbers now don't matter (which is why when traffic swells in December the site better be ready to handle it).

i think it's pretty well demonstrated that keeping ppl grossly ignorant and tribal will allow them to vote however they are instructed to do, regardless of economic dependancy.

They probably assume it will be unwieldy because social programs almost always are. By their very nature they (allegedly) lock in parts of the electorate.

I think conservatives probably would say that defending the US interest abroad allows for adventures in military; that is inherently Constitutional.

xp

i don't see any mention of iraq in the constitution. otoh, there's a lot of free healing going on in the new testament fwiw

it creates a dependent voting class...

Except if everyone gets treated the same, it puts everyone in roughly the same class in regard to health care, thus removing it as a political distinction.

...permanent Democratic majority...

This is true only if the Republicans permanently promise to dismantle any single payer that gets put in place. But after being punished enough for staying in this position, they would abandon it.

yeah this talk of permanent majorities, dependent classes etc. is all bullshit

yeah this talk of permanent majorities, dependent classes etc. is all bullshit

So there's no such thing as a dependent class of people?

see Aimless' post above

and even if it did, that "dependence" has nothing to do with voting patterns

the most dependent people in the country are the rich fucks who live off investments. stigmatize them too or gtfo

why do people over the age of 18 fall for the con that helping the poor hurts the country?

like OMG I am dependent on the gov't for keeping random people from murdering me, BETTER VOTE REPUBLICAN

or OMG I am dependent on the gov't for giving me massive tax breaks and subsidies BETTER VOTE FOR EITHER PARTY

the most dependent people in the country are the rich fucks who live off investments. stigmatize them too or gtfo

Dependence doesn't have anything to do with voting patterns? Seems like the rich are quite reliable to be conservative. The rich are as dependent.

the basic equation behind the premise - that "class X receives benefit Y from legislation passed by party A = class X always votes for party A" - is inaccurate, people do not vote that way. I get that the classic example to be trotted out is black people voting for Democrats because of civil rights legislation but that is not the clearcut example people usually argue it as, and it's relevance on other, non-explicitly race-related issues is highly debatable.

xp

Seems like the rich are quite reliable to be conservative.

no

that is, if by conservative you mean Republican.

I'm with wide-eyed Sully: the threat of penalties will make everyone who needs to sign up for health care at the last minute, so the numbers now don't matter (which is why when traffic swells in December the site better be ready to handle it).

The actual mandate doesn't kick in until February (and there's speculation they can extend it all the way through open enrollment). The December crunch will be people who want their insurance to begin on January 1st.

the biggest complaint I've heard against government single payer is that the government doesn't do anything right (and the healthcare.gov website rollout isn't helping matters in that resolve).

Maybe a year or two ago, a medical policy wonk I respect said he was actually hoping for the Affordable Care Act to pass specifically because it was doomed to fail, recognizing that it might have to fail to make single payer that much more appealing.

wonder how much the republican freak out is really about wider spread access to cheaper mental health care

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/joe-biden-new-frontier-for-mental-health-98779.html?hp=r20

their base could get decimated

also, joe biden totally looks like a wizard

sorry i know we're talking about health care now but it seems that the phone tapping might have wide repercussions:

Merkel: US Spying Has Shattered Allies' Trust

BRUSSELS (AP) — European leaders united in anger Thursday as they attended a summit overshadowed by reports of widespread U.S. spying on its allies — allegations German Chancellor Angela Merkel said had shattered trust in the Obama administration and undermined the crucial trans-Atlantic relationship.

..."The United States of America and Europe face common challenges. We are allies," the German leader said. "But such an alliance can only be built on trust. That's why I repeat again: spying among friends, that cannot be."

...Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt called it "completely unacceptable" for a country to eavesdrop on an allied leader.

If reports that Merkel's cellphone had been tapped are true, "it is exceptionally serious," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told national broadcaster NOS.

"We want the truth," Italian Premier Enrico Letta told reporters. "It is not in the least bit conceivable that activity of this type could be acceptable."

Echoing Merkel, Austria's foreign minister, Micheal Spindelegger, said, "We need to re-establish with the U.S. a relationship of trust, which has certainly suffered from this."

..."I think we are all outraged, across party lines," Wolfgang Bosbach, a prominent German lawmaker from Merkel's party, told Deutschlandfunk radio. "And that also goes for the response that the chancellor's cellphone is not being monitored — because this sentence says nothing about whether the chancellor was monitored in the past."

...Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, said Europe's undermined confidence in the U.S. meant it should suspend negotiations for a two-way free-trade agreement that would account for almost half of the global economy. The Americans, Schulz said, now must prove they can be trusted.

"Let's be honest. If we go to the negotiations and we have the feeling those people with whom we negotiate know everything that we want to deal with in advance, how can we trust each other?" Schulz said.

Biden said that ongoing research also holds promise for returning veterans struggling with post-traumatic stress.

psst Joe gimme a call I totally have the solution to this problem

more:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/nsa-surveillance-world-leaders-calls#_

NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders after US official handed over contacts
• Agency given more than 200 numbers by government official
• NSA encourages departments to share their 'Rolodexes'
• Surveillance produced 'little intelligence', memo acknowledges

"Surveillance produced 'little intelligence', memo acknowledges"

hey, doesn't Merkel have a PhD? or has that one been found to be plagiarized too?