It's a lot easier and more comfortable to stay complacent and work within the flawed system we have in place instead of changing to something entirely new. Scary!!

discuss how we would work with what we already have: Medicare, Medicaid, VA, etc. These programs are all single payer programs.

...and graduate DEBT FREE if willing to work a part time job or had some help from the parents without them going into debt either.
THIS was the NORM,
not the exception,
and it worked well.

We could have all that again,
IF we had a Political Party that represented the Middle/Working Class and the Poor.
We had one once, but, sadly, it exists no longer.

also. Fear of Change.

maybe they think Medicare is OK because it is for retirees who worked all their lives at productive jobs and "deserve" their medicare, esp. since they wouldn't be able to get health insurance otherwise...

That's my guess....they can't stop what they are doing, even if it's now wrong...especially on this issue.

president. They don't care that it will hurt the 99%.

He has no coalition, no clout, and a lack of understanding with respect to healthcare. How little policy knowledge he has really came to the fore during this election cycle.

What you are calling a coalition is nothing more than counting chickens before they hatch.

How about this, if Sanders wins Iowa tonight I will say he has a small coalition.

I have zero issues with Clintons speeches. She made it to the big time and people want to hold it against her. I could care less and see straight through it for what it is.

be realistic...

The "socialist" just boils your blood doesn't he?

I notice a trend of Sanders supporters projecting emotions. My blood isn't boiling at all. I'm really excited for tonight. Had a great weekend and the caucus meal is planned. Not only is my blood not boiling, I'm extremely optimistic.

Could you at least take the time to think of a coherent argument before posting?

that shit MUST be painful.

Obama took it off the table because Single-Payer was a non-starter with the Democratic Senators at the time. We basically wound up with what Max Baucus would accept. And what Olympia Snowe would tease us that she might accept.

And then she didn't.

So, if we want Socialized Healthcare (and I do), then it will take massive majorities in both houses of Congress, the SCOTUS, and the White House. Enough that Senators and Reps are willing to put their re-election on the line.

I don't see that happening anytime soon.

The providers would still be both private and public. The single-payer would be the government.

You frame their argument for them when you call it "socialized healthcare."

tax subsidized health insurance.

Unfortunately, millions of us can not afford that same insurance that our tax dollars pay for.

Of course, Hillary has stated that the "better" plan will never ever happen.

I think Bernie understands very well the situation. That is why he is running.

Not all wealth is zero-sum but some is. For the Oligarchy to support health care for the poor, they'd have to lose some of their profits. Not gonna happen. Whereas H. Clinton may honestly feel bad for the poor and maybe even willing to shift some of the wealth in the 99% around to help, she won't do anything to impact her close friends and benefactors in the Oligarchy.

Health care as a human right is not one of her core values. In order for incrementalism to work, you have to have some kind of goal in mind.

or is it, "I'm going to the doctor."?

Unfortunately, under our current system of ACA and insurance companies it is all too often (as in our case) the former rather than the latter.

silver plan -- premium $650 a month for one person -- spent a few hours in the ER. His share of the bill was $5000. How that is considered "affordable" to anyone who isn't wealthy is beyond me. The ACA isn't affordable for many, and millions are still doing without insurance and just hoping they will never get sick.

The present system is unsustainable and unconscienable.

While I was blessed to have insurance through work, and actually didn't mind the notion of a modest increase in what I paid so others could get coverage, I find the ACA laughable. I now pay more for less... less for me, but also for those very others precisely because of the deductibles, copays and costs the insurer won't cover. If you are struggling to pay for rent/mortgage, education and food, how the hell do you come up with insurance premiums and all the other insurance costs?!!

And now some insurers are planning to opt out of the ACA. Plus, you have to report verification of coverage on your taxes (my employer just provided the proof of insurance document).

What absurdity. Insurance is not healthcare. Big Pharma and Big insurance are having a bonanza.

I mentioned was on COBRA for many months after losing his job, and those premiums were over $700 a month -- another scam. When he finally became eligible for the ACA after his COBRA ran out, he was already in a world of financial hurt from paying those horrific premiums every month while collecting 26 weeks of unemployment and for several more months after unemployment ran out. Fortunately, he eventually found work, but not until the system nearly bankrupted him.

They love the forced mandates while carrying on with bidness as usual.

paying for surgery I had last year. I can't afford it.

Just me. No dental. With that plan, my share of prescription costs were still somewhere between $150-$250 a month. Not sure why it fluctuated so much.

Had to dip into savings to pay for it. I'm fortunate, as so many have no savings to draw upon. It's certainly not affordable to all.

The status quo is known. Changing the status quo is unknown.

They know they are being screwed by their insurance companies, but many people have figured out work-arounds to protect themselves (ie. My high-deductible employer-based insurance has an HSA)

They know they are being screwed by high tuition. But many people have figured out work-arounds to protect themselves (just started my kid's 529 savings accounts...they're 2 and 4, and it's going to take me that long to save up enough for a state school)

Change is scary, because it might lead to something worse. What if there were no HSAs or 529s? Then I lose the work-around and get really screwed!!!

It's why their primary argument is "But the Republicans could do ______" instead of "My candidate will do _______". They are more motivated by fear than hope.

Already have good health insurance through their employer, with a huge amount of their premium paid by their employer, and a low deductible and copay. They got theirs and they don't really worry too much about those who don't.

They are afraid they might lose something, and refuse to listen to the truth...that they won't lose anything, they will actually save money (especially if their employer takes the premium they were paying and gives it to the employee as higher income...which I seriously doubt most of them will do).

So yeah, it's scary to think you might lose a good thing.

are HUGE employers. If the insurance companies go away lots and lots of people will lose their jobs. So they contribute lots and lots of money to candidates who will not let that happen.

I do not yet know how to load images but I would suggest that all those who accept, and wish to maintain, the current system visit the website of Physicians for a National Health Program: www.PNHP.org and also look at http://bit.ly/insurance-ceos to see how much overhead consumes premium dollars and how exorbitant the CEO compensation is.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield was first created by the medical profession to assure income for physicians and healthcare for patients. It was not for profit! Then in the 1980s Wall Street moved in and converted the untaxed not-for-profits (like BC/BS) to for-profits. They introduced bottom-line concepts to the delivery of medicine and gradually control passed from the medical side to the business side, with fee limitations which then drove the trend to higher volumes per day (more patients but less time with the MD), restrictions of access (e.g., pre-existing disease limits) and other impediments. Ultimately business executives usurped medicine garnering huge salaries for themselves that far exceeded the payment to practitioners, and forced practices to use more physician assistants and nurse practitioners thus increasing the distance between doctors and patients.

So, for the most part, we now pay more in premiums, deductibles, copays, etc. for less coverage, less care and less satisfaction. And no one is satisfied, not the docs or the patients. The financial industry (actually a misnomer since the financial sector doesn't make ANYTHING) drastically changed the parameters of the practice of medicine and not for the better.

It's time to change that model and HRC ain't the one to do it. Go Bernie!

Just saying .... There are lots and LOTS of people with lots to lose if the current system goes away - so when someone says "How can they"..... the answer is THEY have a vested interest in keeping things as they are - and will fight tooth and nail to make sure that happens.

See how that works?

The poster knows she doesn't have to beat them when she stands with them. Hillary is no more than a pro choice Republican or Trump with better hair. Opps, here comes the alert.

--like they did in 2014. Clinton has nothing for them. It is Sanders who is motivating the previously uninvolved.

Because they and their reps in the house would be the ones to crush all those nice Bernie dreams for you.

Magic President Bernie will turn all the rabid foaming at the mouth teahaddists in the house into hardcore socialists overnight.

We, your fellow democrats are the real enemy, march on Bernie revolution!

...that control whether or not your get medical care and to whom we must pay monthly premiums in the $100s and deductibles in the $1000s?

Why do you not support public education being extended past 12th Grade to a 4yr degree?

Why do you not support a national living minimum wage increase?

Or, perhaps I'm asking the wrong question. Perhaps I should be asking, why are you not supporting the candidate who wants all of that and more for The People?

But I won't support a candidate I don't trust.

See: Can Bernie Sanders Win the Love of a Party He Scorns?
The long, troubled history of Bernie Sanders and the 'ideologically bankrupt' party whose White House nod he now seeks.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/bernie-sanders-2016-democrats-121181

And I don't support a candidate that makes wild promises, not just one but many wild promises that will never happen if real life.

And when you ask him or his followers how he plans to accomplish all of these plans the answer is...revolution!? Give me a f***in break! I was alive during the vietnam era, we were pretty close to revolution then. Ain't nothing like that happening now that's for damn sure.

You can fool a few young folks with that BS rhetoric maybe but I've been around the block a few times LOL

But most of all I will not support a candidate that will hand over total control of the government to outright fascists that are running under the republican banner!

Bernie would lose the general in a freaking landslide.

Got it.

Democrats have decided that giving in to Repukes makes more sense than joining an army of citizens coming together to fight tooth and nail for change. Those Vichy Dems, as I've seen them referred to here, have no reasoned response for you -- other than the ridiculous notion that Bernie would lose in a landslide, even though their own candidate is passionately hated by Republicans, who've invested years in investigating her every action. The Hillary supporters are seemingly satisfied with the status quo and apparently have the money to afford high premiums and deductibles and a college education for their kids, and have no problem supporting a candidate who's cozy with Wall Street, voted for the Iraq clusterfuck, and whose platform is "No we can't" and might as well be "Let them eat cake."

Love your post. This thread has so many marvelous responses to the HRC supporters, I am just going to print it out and use the wonderful verbiage herein as talking points when I canvas for Bernie here in SC. Our primary is on 2/27 and I am already fighting the supporters of candidate weathervane. I get a bit strident because of emotion; but using some posts here as a script, I will modulate my voice and turn on some southern charm while hopefully making them feel the Bern!

Your reference to "let them eat cake" is apropos.
When Hillary was asked whether she'd release her Goldman Sachs speech scripts, her response was to laugh.

If that's not "let them eat cake," I don't know what is.

single payer vs. the ACA -- that was what, four years ago, maybe more?

People right now are supporting a system that keeps ALL insurers from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions; a system that allows a struggling Millennial to be kept on his family's health plan 'til age 26. Have you no sense how that positively affects millions of people beyond those who complain about ACA's costs?

I recommend that this is moot and is fighting the 2008-9 fight all over again. Bernie is aware that Medicare For All is not a big sell to the public. He knows from Obama how to fight the insurance companies going forward.

"because they are Republicans?"

As for Dems who don't think single payer would pass right now, that does not mean they do not want single payer. It's fallacious but they think they can spin that into us not wanting it.

She wants to make the ACA better. So the nutbags that voted 60 times to repeal the ACA will now just go along with what she wants to do?

I don't understand how Clinton supporters don't see that making that argument cuts pretty strongly against their own point being made.

But really, they're Republicans.

They're more concerned with being able to take a picture of them filling out their ballot and posting it on social media, than with what that vote actually means.

I, for one, thing you're making way more history with your ballot by voting for a democratic socialist than for someone whose major differentiation is that they don't have the same thing between their legs as most candidates.

HRH has already preemptively surrendered on every major issue. How inspiring.

and there's no cure or treatment for it.

How do you:
(1) cover MORE people (30m uninsured)
(2) get each of them to pay less (no deductibles and co-pays)
without rationing care?

...not available to those who don't have the resources.

Why do you support this continuation of this paradigm?

a viable alternative.

Bernie's health care plan is a fantasy.

How do you expect:
(1) Cover more people
(2) Ask them to pay less (whether through tax or premium or co-payment/deductible)
(3) Not ration any part of their health care?

...collected and banked by insurance companies?

That is the entirety of their role here.

But then, I don't live in America any more.

take the insurance companies out of the equation and there is an immediate decrease in the cost of health care:
> remove insurance company profits
> remove overpaid execs
> reduce costs for providers due to dramatically reduced paperwork

Everybody pays a small tax instead of an insurance premium. Including people like me, who are healthy so have opted out of ACA because I would have been unable to afford any actual healthcare at all if I'd purchased insurance.

The coverage includes everybody, but it doesn't have to include every single thing under the sun. Leave the "concierge" and "boutique" care to the insurance companies.

But I'm sorry you don't want me to have healthcare, or anybody who made the mistake of buying insurance and discovering when they got sick they had nothing left over to pay for the actual healthcare.

who knew better than to buy insurance that would leave them out, and the who knows how many who bought insurance and discovered they couldn't afford any actual healthcare as a result.

Countries with single payer systems spend roughly half as much per person as we do, AND they manage to cover everybody with no deductibles and either small or no co-pays. And most of them do not ration care, at least for non-elective procedures. In many of those countries, average wait times to see a primary care doctor are actually shorter than in the U.S.

Not everyone would pay less if we switched to single payer. People with higher incomes would probably have to pay more than they do now. But the overall cost per person would be lower.

What happens to the single payer system if Repubs get ahold of it, and see it as a way to slash the budget? I'm for Bernie, but the thought of Republicans eventually being in charge of medical policy scares me!

Or do you think that Health Insurance CEOs are all Socialist Democrats?

* she's a comfortable, safe choice... you know what you're getting
* they think she'd be more electable in November
* she has more foreign policy experience
* they feel that Bernie's "better" solutions are not acheivable anyway
* she's a woman, and "it's time"

Some people might put guns on the list, but when you look in detail at their positions or what new legislation they would be willing to support, they're not really very different... Hillary's advantage there is more PR than actual proposals. Similarly, despite the Planned Parenthood flap, I don't think anyone really believes that Bernie is going to be any less pro-choice than Hillary. There is a lot of faux outrage and rationalizations people offer for their choices, but there aren't really big differences in terms of the kind of Presidents these people would be when it comes to guns or women's rights. (Well, except maybe that Bernie supports the paid family leave bill, and Hillary opposes it.)

reside in the top income brackets and their portfolios and investments depend on the continued privatization and profiteering off of basic human needs in modern society. Many are also small business owners and the worst abusers of labor when it comes to a "fair" wage system.

Change is not easy for them.

...that she is now having to pay before her insurance kicks in. Also, she has had a different and more costly plan each year for the past 3 years that I've known her. So, each year everything, including the provider, has a chance of CHANGING.

But one thing that doesn't change: premiums, copays, and deductibles. My s/o is diabetic and paying that deductible makes her life financially miserable and the stress is on because her expenses are already stretched to the max as it is.

She would much rather pay 2.2% more in taxes each paycheck and eliminate all that annual change and all that out-of-pocket expense.

It is ridiculous that people have to shop for coverage every damn year and guess what they will need in the coming months.

It is insanity.

I'd like to know who has 100% coverage from work.

Hell, I'm a doctor in the system. I have worked for 36 years in hospitals, public health clinics and now in academia. I have never had 100% coverage. Ever. There are always premiums, deductibles, copays and costs for goods (brand name prescriptions v generics) and services (specialists) not in the network.

The only thing near 100% is Medicare plus a supplemental private insurance with eye and dental coverage.

I remember fee for service. I remember when MDs were in charge of medicine, not bean counters and profiteers. Insurance companies ration healthcare. Period. They actually restrict access and provision and profit mightily from their denial of claims.

It's a truly broken system and we are long past incrementalism to fix it.

Carolina M.D.

...you are my BFF!

Thank you!

There's no other logical explanation.

But point taken, they would certainly be lower for a lot of people.

Current Medicare premiums and deductibles

...taking private, profit-soaked premiums and deductibles.

Everybody understand the maths, even Hillary supporters. Math is not the problem here.

Our current fragmented system is not sustainable nor is it efficient. Most people don't understand how health insurance works, let alone the problems that multiple pools of risk create.

A single payer system, that is not contingent upon employment, will happen sooner or later.

I can only think of 1 or 2 worse legacies to be tied to.

1 - An unnecessary, and very costly war of aggression.

2 - The crashing of an economy, leaving millions in poverty.

1 is the pretty common (sorry to say) 'i dunwanna pay for nobody else' attitude that is common in the US

2 probably part of '1' but a lot of people seem to have the feeling that they get nothing back from taxes, thus
they don't want to pay taxes

3 many of the people against univ healthcare seem to already have EXCELLENT health care (another sub group don't want health care at all)
the ones with excellent healthcare might be scared of a lowering of quality, longer waits, and similar and that likely will happen to a small degree especially initially because when a system built to deal with less than 100% of the population then being asked to deal with the 100% of the population AND the backlog of what the people that weren't covered before...had going on

And Sanders proposals don't add up. On health care his plan originally claimed it would save more than is actually spent on prescription drugs. That isn't actually possible, but if that made it into his plan, then what other numbers are utter hogwash?

His college plan is terrifying to me as somebody who values education. Those countries he lauds for having free education offer it to far fewer people than we do. Either we need to spend a great deal more than he plans or we have to admit far fewer people to college. Additionally his plan calls for in a few years evening out block grants to each state based on the median amount of funding across the states. So there is no incentive for a state to increase their own spending as it won't result in additional federal grants, and it also ignores the drastically different costs of being in major metro areas versus being a rural state. The cost of things in Kansas (cost of land, salaries, etc) is lower than in New York and yet each state will be getting the same per student.

His plans rely on funny numbers and overly optimistic views on revenue generated to pay for his proposals. Give me something a little more grounded in reality please.

It's easy to offer the moon. But when it comes to brass tacks, I don't believe Sanders has a viable plan to afford the cost of what he's promising. I'll still vote for him if he's the nominee, but the more I study the actual fundamentals of his plans, the less I like him. And that ignores my annoyance with his overly fawning fans who refuse to hear anything against Sanders. For example, see the accusation that is the original post.

PLUS vision and dental - which no "health insurance" plan covers now; they're always handled as separate policies.

Bernie's fans seem to be applying the numbers for the current healthcare system to Bernie's plan. You can't do that because Bernie's plan is more lavish than any healthcare plan in the world.

Probably not what the OP wanted to hear, but it's the correct answer anyway.

I am borrowing your post to use when I talk to people to GOTV here is SC!

If I may?

dead hands of the Pentagon.

AMERICANS DON'T WANT TO PAY MORE FOR WHAT WE SHOULD ALREADY HAVE.

They've been brainwashed into believing that God says we should give all of our money to rich people because they deserve it more.

... who think a single payer bill would pass a Republican house? Single payer is a noble goal but it's not a promise Bernie can deliver on.


Single payer can be achieved incrementally if you are really serious about it.

The next step would be to add an optional buy-in to Medicare to the ACA. People would then see that the sky didn't fall down and eventually you win the battle.

Known and easier on the surface....Not thinking about underlying implication.

(Full disclosure. I shop at Wal Mart sometimes when there's no other choice., But I dio try all other avenues first.)

Others will dutifully follow whatever Hillary says regardless of the consequences. There are a lot of similarities here to former Bush supporters.

Think tank Koch funded Heritage Foundation.

We can't afford an entire paycheck a month to half-ass insure one family member, the breadwinner.

Fuck this stupid health insurance bullshit, it's a scam!

MEDICARE E - FOR EVERYONE!

not the upper middle class is next to nothing.

as for college education. One person and old friend pointed out from the other side that depends on the education. Free technical college? Trade vs brains. Two sorts.. Free technical should go without saying. I'm not exactly great in my education because of ADD but I've very good with computers, just don't know how to turn that into a job

If all it took was desire to make single payer happen, then sure I'm onboard.

If the potential outcomes of the 115th Senate and house elections presented the possibility of a congress that will go for it, and only one of our candidates were for it.. I'd be totally onboard with the candidate that wants it.

But there isn't. The reality is, the 115th congress will be (not might be, but will be) at BEST willing to accept the statue quo, with a heavy possibility it will be another congress, that not only would NEVER put through a bill for single payer, but is far more likely to destroy the ACA as it is and provide nothing new at all. The 110th type of congress is not coming back for at least the next 2 cycles, and that congress wasn't even able to get a Government Option through despite a HUGELY popular president pushing very hard for it. The 115th in the most optimistic sense isn't going to be nearly as open to progress as the 110th was. The numbers are not there.

Just think about it a second, as a Senior Senator, Senator Sanders is in a MUCH better position to get his dream legislation introduced and through congress than he will as President. Right now, he has a President that would happily sign it if he could.. But he hasn't introduced that bill, he can't get it through, and as president it will not reach his desk to sign.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/yet-another-obamacare-repeal-vote

If we get a Repblican President the progress we've made is more likely to be lost than a Democratic President being able to boost it with either a government option or go full single payer.

The Presidency isn't the place to start this. We need to focus on a better congress, THEN get a president in who just won't Veto the damn thing.

constructed by the few, with the means to live their own fantasy.

No thank you.

Bernie as President would use the power of veto to protect the masses.

You do know what a House and Senate is, right?
You do know that laws start, and go through Congress, right?
Here's a little helper:

it is the mathematics of the masses.

I have no doubt that Hillary will chip away at SS, Medicare and all the programs that help everyday Americans.

Go Bernie.

to international offices to the international stock markets. I'm pretty sure we can guess the real reason. The "pragmatic" one.

They want to hear Hillary say they won't have to roll their jobs over into similar jobs in the public sector. But if they do they'd be better off. They themselves would pay a lot less in premiums and a tad more in taxes. Not such a tough tradeoff, really.

It's that six month, maybe yearlong changeover period they're afraid of, from the stock markets to the receptionist, the transition that might hurt their cash flow, credit, kids' expenses, etc.

So let's not pretend it's all Hillary. The "No We Can't" is looking out for millions of jobs, and Hillarians know this.

Couldn't of said it any better myself. Kudos. Feeling the Bern...

....will go WAY up during the years we're waiting for a new plan to be enacted, if ever.

When did he ever say that? The answer is never.

THAT is what is with people espousing corrupt, bought & paid for candidates.