2020 Democratic presidential primary

brooklynite leftist posters would die and go to heaven if they had even a modicum of the influence centrists seem to fear they do

you the real MVP

xpost

People listen to me jim

of course they do, that's how it works

Then.. why am I supposed to interpret "Medicare for All" as implying abolition of private insurance? I have not been reading it this way.

don't know that I'd vote for Harris in a primary, but against Trump in a general election i'd obv do so without hesitation. this shit is serious!

otm

Then.. why am I supposed to interpret "Medicare for All" as implying abolition of private insurance? I have not been reading it this way.

I don't know! it doesn't make sense to me either

don't know that I'd vote for Harris in a primary, but against Trump in a general election i'd obv do so without hesitation. this shit is serious!

a totally defensible position

I will vote for any democrat against donald trump

right, but Medicare-for-all is not really single-payer, since Medicare basically is a way of publicly financing the payment to private insurers afaict?

― Οὖτις, Thursday, January 31, 2019 12:41 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

medicare does contract with private insurers to pay out some of its claims, something like one-third. this is a more recent trend with the advent of medicare advantage and part D...but it doesn’t have to be this way

https://www.kff.org/report-section/a-primer-on-medicare-how-does-medicare-pay-providers-in-traditional-medicare/

read up a few tweet to the top of this thread about the differences between the different m4a proposals tho, interesting topic

Right, a more accurate terminology would be something like "Enhanced Medicare for Everybody" and "Enhanced Medicare for Anybody." But now you've really got a mouthful.

— Jonathan Cohn (@CitizenCohn) January 30, 2019

I'm already super stoked to read all the essays from left Twitter in November 2020 about how they're not voting for president because Kamala Harris is a disingenuous cop and anyway, it doesn't matter because they all live in NY and so she's gonna win their state anyway.

― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Thursday, January 31, 2019 1:09 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

really useful post that many users benefited from, thanks

now can tell me why "fiscal realities" of medicare for all are a helpful talking point in 2019?

sorry realized I didn't answer this - it's really the *political* realities that Harris is taking into account, ie, what will actually pass the Senate (which is why she referenced other Democratic proposals). And the reality of that is that there are Democrats in the Senate who are, rightly or wrongly (mostly wrongly), concerned about incurring huge amounts of debt for M4A, and they may have different plans in mind or concerns that will need to be addressed in order to get their votes.

But really if you want to look at what concrete policy proposal she supports re: M4A look at the bill she and Bernie co-sponsored in the Senate. Which has no hope of passage, obviously, but that's her starting point.

I think its weird that months before the first primary even happens there are already people telling critics of establishment candidates to “get in line,” even though itms not yet clear that these candidates are even the favorites ot the ones with the best shot at winning.

i think it’s weird that i don’t like that

brooklynite leftist posters would die and go to heaven

no thanks

I'm not telling anyone to get in line, but I don't like disingenuous arguments or arguments being made in bad faith or people taking up RW talking points that are specifically developed to sow discord within the party

grim lol xp

i mean, i'm just more interested in candidates whose priorities over their career are more aligned with mine than i am in people who believed other things

I'm already super stoked to read all the essays from left Twitter in November 2020 about how they're not voting for president because Kamala Harris is a disingenuous cop and anyway, it doesn't matter because they all live in NY and so she's gonna win their state anyway.

― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Thursday, January 31, 2019 1:09 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

really useful post that many users benefited from, thanks

― k3vin k., Thursday, January 31, 2019 1:24 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Harris is hardly my preference at this point, I'm just already so sick of this "disqualifying" bullshit in January of 2019.

debating candidates' histories and positions is not "discord," it is the process

if someone else had disseminated the Harris videos, it wouldn't change any of the substance

you have to be super deep in beltway gossip realpolitik hell to not realize why people want to support candidates they agree with and are less enthused about--for instance--a prosecutor

I get why leftists hate cops. I mean, I am a leftist that hates cops!

esp the SFPD ugh those assholes

what irritates me is the following equation, which is well in evidence around here already:

1) I hate cops
2) ergo I do not like this cop that is running for president
3) thus it is cool if I throw up any old bullshit that damages said cop running for president, regardless of its relevance, accuracy or veracity

it's step number 3 that is the problem

I’ll vote for the democrat in november always but until then I’m not going to think about strategizing. Nobody is able to talk about social issues outside the lens of this weird partisan lens. It’s like everyone is james carville now.

laughing about throwing parents in jail over truancy not nec "any old bullshit"

Oh i didn’t see 3. I saw people saying they didn’t trust her on healthcare bc, even though its good she supports m4a, there are things in her background that suggest it wouldn’t be a priority for her the way it would for a warren or a bernie.

BUT im at work and not reading the thread carefully

I saw people saying they didn’t trust her on healthcare bc, even though its good she supports m4a, there are things in her background that suggest it wouldn’t be a priority for her the way it would for a warren or a bernie.

see? this is literal bullshit

laughing about throwing parents in jail over truancy not nec "any old bullshit"

actually yes, this is also bullshit. show me the parents she threw in jail.

Why? Fighting economic inequality hasn’t been her passion. There are candidates in the ring for whom it has

I dont know about the truancy law thing—im not speaking to that

because she literally co-sponsored a M4A bill WITH BERNIE, which I have linked two twice already now

Fighting economic inequality hasn’t been her passion.

just... waht

As attorney general, Harris made waves in 2011 after pulling California out of national negotiations pursuing a monetary settlement from major banks for foreclosed households during the financial crisis. She believed she could do better for her state.

In her new book, "The Truths We Hold," the senator recounts a tense phone conversation with J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, persuading him to provide more settlement money. The two yelled at each other "like dogs in a fight," she wrote. A spokesperson from J.P. Morgan declined to comment on the conversation.

Harris later reached a $25 billion settlement deal from J.P. Morgan and other banks, much higher than the $2 billion to $4 billion initially on the table. California homeowners received over $18 billion in mortgage relief as a result of the deal, according to a report by the attorney general's office.

"This outcome is the result of an insistence that California receive a fair deal commensurate with the harm done here," Harris said in a statement at the time.

Harris later backed the California Homeowners Bill of Rights, a package of legislation to protect homeowners during the foreclosure process. The legislation also extended the statute of limitations to prosecute mortgage fraud from 1 to 3 years.

In 2017, her first year as a U.S. senator, she introduced a bill alongside fellow Democrats Elizabeth Warren and Dianne Feinstein targeting executives at big banks. The bill, entitled the "Accountability for Wall Street Executives Act," would allow state law enforcement to issue subpoenas when investigating bank fraud.

yeah what fucking ever

It's time to get over the hangover of George McGovern. pic.twitter.com/Cl6T47BAgV

— corey robin (@CoreyRobin) January 29, 2019

"less because of substance than the style"

yeah whatever gtfo, clearly Harris' problem is with STYLE rmde

this is so tiresome, the endless stream of nonsense that's easily rebuttable, what does it remind me of hmmm

I didn’t actually know about the 25 bn settlement.

that guy looks at Kamala Harris and sees George McGovern, sounds reasonable

yeah well I live in California
xp

Is she actually as left as warren and bernie on economics? What kind of marginal tax rates does she want? What about free college? Maybe i totally misunderstood who she is

I’m wrong a lot, it’s fine. For clarity though i never said she was paul ryan, i just thought there were other more economicallt left wing candidates in the running so its not surprising many would be resistant to harris

nonsense that's easily rebuttable, what does it remind me of hmmm

Clinton saying that Nancy Reagan was an AIDS activist?

What kind of marginal tax rates does she want?

she recently said AOC's proposed rate is a good idea. I don't think she's put out a tax plan yet the way Warren has.

that guy looks at Kamala Harris and sees George McGovern, sounds reasonable

I fear you have misunderstood -- he's saying she sees McGovern in everyone to the left of her

i don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that M4A is just taking the place of "universal health care" which tells you less about how it will be achieved or exactly how it will work. M4A implies the extension to everyone of a program people already know, that already exists and works just fine, that they see paying for their parents' care. for now, its power is precisely in its simplicity.

but yes, the specifics of that extension will matter and should be hashed out at some point. disclaimer up front i know nothing about health care policy or how anything works. but from my five minutes of laser-focused googling, it's easy to imagine the ratio of how much medicare covers, or the extent of covered services, getting tinkered with. you don't need the details of "what exactly will the insurance industry look like" in the stump speech, because 95% of the people who are getting motivated by "M4A" do not care.... but if i'm choosing between candidates in a primary, "what kind of coverage are we talking about?" is meaningful. the fate-of-the-insurance industry stuff is really like side effects of this. as a leftie i want to project true universal coverage onto M4A, but there is certainly wiggle room for a range of M4As.

like e.g. "radical" version is where M4A is a trojan horse for extending true universal coverage: everybody's fully covered in terms of costs and in terms of services you can get. that most clearly fits the concept of quality health care as a right, and would appear to leave almost no room for a private health insurance industry. you wouldn't need to ban it - it would have no competitive products worth buying.

"progressive" versions might begin with extending current "medicare" to everybody, but maintaining only its current degree of covered services and money paid out, and range up to anything short of the "radical" version above. this is where we get into wonkish weeds but it matters - there's a big difference in terms of efficacy and equity between a scheme where the platter of covered services resembles a pretty decent employer group plan today, and one where it resembles a pretty crappy employer group plan today. those differences also test the depth of the committment to quality health care being a right, and suggest how big a space remains for the private insurance market in terms of non-covered services or costs for which they'll pick up the slack. i imagine there's some breaking point where once the plan gets more ambitious in its coverage than X, you can no longer plausibly say "look, there will always be companies competing to offer you hospital beds with HBO on-demand and organic catered meals." of course, it may be that nobody cares anyway - it's not like the health insurance industry is super popular.

a "centrist" or "conservative" version might extend "medicare" to everybody but shrink the range of covered services and the amount of money paid out for them, either to reduce costs because the politician is in the pocket of rich people who don't want to pay taxes, or to protect the insurance industry because the politician in is in the pocket of the insurance industry. you can easily imagine schemes where, e.g., there are medicare "tiers" depending on your age or something, so that medicare pays 50% of covered costs for 65 and older, but only 30% for 55 and older, 25% below that, or whatever. or the number of people covered increases but the range of services covered shrinks. it could still be a monumental shift in american health care policy and change/save millions of lives, but it posits a less fundamental and liberating shift in our way of life, and much less cost savings for the individual. it's also much easier to imagine such a scheme being eroded by future conservative governments: "of course we believe in medicare for all, but costs are out of control and we have to tighten our belts" --- harder to pull off if "medicare for all" were synonymous with true universal coverage. so such a package is not hardly as much to get excited about and march in the streets for, but plausibly what we might end up with depending on the composition of congress, and the platform/rhetoric of the party leaders including the presidential candidate.

Harris supports debt-free college and noted so in her announcement speech. Here's a previous proposal from 2016: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article102937257.html

xp

Regardless of its applicability to Harris, I think that's a good critique of the Democratic establishment. (The Corey Robin post.)