And that will magically change things over night.

Being in favor of single payer, for example, counts for basically nothing since there's no way that's going anywhere. It could even be a negative if Bernie actually decides to spend time, effort, and political capital on a lost cause.

You think a real progressive can't win. I understand.

Given the choice of getting 60%-70% of what I'd ideally like by voting for a mainstream Democrat with the resources and capability of winning, and getting 0% of what I'd ideally like by voting for a left-wing Democrat WITHOUT the resources and capability of winning, and consequently getting a Republican beholden to the Tea Party, I'll take the former. How about you?

Sounds good to me.

and avoiding the elephant in the room of complete domination of our system by a handful of mega corporations and Oligarchs.

I know that;s tough talk, but no more radical than FDR or other mainstream liberals used to acknowledge...but which has become a "third rai"l today thanks to the compliance of the "third way."

...and I'll switch sides. I have no objection to any of his policies, I just don't think he can get elected to implement them.

...but Sanders, nice as he it, is not Obama.

He won't be making the same mistakes.

They all have their pluses and minuses in terms of factors that contribute to "elect ability." As a well as outside forces that are always unpredictable.

Ultimately it boils down to 1)Which candidate represents what you (generically) believe in and 2)Which candidate has the qualities that one believes are most likely to win against the GOP. The "it factor."

Bernie Sanders has been speaking and acting for what I believe in for 30 years. Absolutely and unvarnished. Beern following him since the 90's.

I will admit that it worries me that he can comes across at times as a grumpy old man. I kinda wish he'd describe himself as a liberal and/or progressive instead of a socialist, for appearances sake.

But I also believe he's got the "it" factor because he projects total; integrity that people relate to, he has the power of his convictions, and the time is right for what he represents and who he is.

Apparently a lot of other people are coming to the same conclusion too and "feeling the Bern." JUst the fact that people feel free to use the term "feel the Bern" indicated a certain connection, that cold spread if given half a chance.

But your mileage may vary, and obviously does.

Such as expansion of Medicare eligibility.

Maybe I'm naive (but I don't think so) but if we actually had a president and enough people in Congress who were willing to offend the insurance companies and talk straight to the American people, that could fly.

Or at least push the needle in that direction much more quickly than "Gee it's all good, even though people's premiums keep rising and insurance companies are merging, and the paperwork and complexity is staggering."

So I'm not "settling" when I support HRC.

There isn't a single person in the US who doesn't benefit from socialized programs. "Socialism" has become a word that reactionaries use to divide and conquer, knowing full well that their supporters don't actually know what socialism is.

what you should or should not decide. We're all intelligent people here on DU, capable of thinking for ourselves. Whoever you support in the Democratic primaries is fully qualified to be President and leagues better as a candidate than anyone from another party.

Your reasons for your choice are reasonable to anything who really thinks about electoral politics in the United States. So, I hope you will ignore those who attack you for your choice. I'd say the same to a supporter of any Democratic candidate, by the way. Make your own decision for your own reasons. Others will be making their own decisions, too.

If Hillary Clinton becomes our next President and we manage to elect a majority in at least the Senate, progress will be made toward our goals. If we expect more than progress toward our goals, we will be disappointed, regardless of who is President, quite frankly.

The policy she has supported and continues to support and the people advising her all point toward a continued degradation of public goods and safety nets in favor of free market solutions.

She's to the left of the status quo on every issue. She's been a huge advocate for healthcare reform, which is the most significant progressive accomplishment since LBJ. She wants to strengthen Dodd-Frank, which is the most significant financial legislation since WW2. She wants to go further than Obama on climate change, and Obama has made significant progress there despite both chambers being in GOP hands.

And so on.

Is a huge redistribution of public money into private insurance coffers. Obama actually FOUGHT progressive efforts for a public option. It has done NOTHING to curtail continually escalating healthcare costs. It was nor reform. It was passage of Republican policy in the name of Democrats.
Hillary now wants to "enhance" Social Security. Have you asked her or her Wall Street advisors exactly what she means by that?
She is no progressive.

Obama didn't fight against the public option, he fought for it, but it didn't get through congress. ACA has reduced the growth rate of healthcare costs, the only people who deny this at this point are right-wingers, who continually warn of the "Obamacare disaster" that never happens. And the redistribution of money in ACA is progressive, in the form of subsidies to lower-income people and Medicaid expansion (which would have been greater if not for SCOTUS -- another reason to vote for Dems). Not to mention the fact that it has enormously increased coverage.

Obamacare in two charts:




No, it's not perfect, but it's a huge and historic improvement over what was there before, and has performed above expectations on pretty much all markers.

The amount of people covered by PRIVATE insurance does not mean actual costs are under control. Obama DID strong-arm Democrats into supporting this without a public option. It WAS a proposal previously forwarded by the Heritage Foundation. The only thing historic about it is the fact that Democrats were fooled into thinking this free-market policy is progressive. The Democratic Party I support would have pushed against all odds for expanding Medicare...just like Republicans continue to incrementally advance their anti choice agenda in the face of public opposition. The Democratic Party I support would not immediately capitulate on a Republican proposal and state "it's the best we could get." Hillary stated to BLM activists she is only interested in what she can "sell". She will not fight for anything.

It improves the lives of millions of people, greatly extends coverage, reduces the growth rate of healthcare costs, and redistributes money progressively to lower-income people.

And you want to say it's bad simply because the money goes through private insurers? Why does that matter? The "public" money funneled to private insurers is in the form of government subsidies. But where does this money come from? It comes from additional taxes which fall primarily on wealthier people. It is progressive redistribution of wealth. Without Obamacare, that money would not be "public", it would still be in the pockets of those rich people.

The public option wasn't going to happen. Even without the public option, it barely got through congress. If we followed your advice, we'd still be stuck with the pre-ACA disaster, millions without coverage, and rapidly rising costs.

They continue to increase. There is no transparency because it is between healthcare providers and insurance companies. It is not a redistribution to lower income people. It is a redistribution of public money to private insurance corporations.

Your talking points are typical third-way claptrap.

No, the growth rate has not dropped below zero. Nothing would have accomplished that.

And, yes, it is a redistribution to lower income people, from wealthy people. Then the lower income people use the money to go out and buy health insurance. To call this a "redistribution of public money to private companies" is like calling Food Stamps the same thing, because there again, money goes to poor people which they turn around and use to buy food from private companies.

People can actually buy food with SNAP benefits. You don't buy healthcare with ACA subsidies. You buy insurance.

But I get it, you would prefer letting the wealthy pay less in taxes, and keeping all those millions of people uninsured, just to avoid the horror of lower-income people being able to buy things from private corporations with government subsidies.

And now you are retreating into sophistry rather than acknowledge it. Insurance is not healthcare. Healthcare costs continue to rise and all of us are held captive to a tug of war between healthcare providers and insurance companies. We had a chance to do something good and we passed a free-market Republican solution.

in order to buy things from the private sector. In one case it's food, in another case, it's health insurance. Either way, it's private money being used to subsidize purchases from private corporations.

I know insurance is not healthcare, but insurance is still a good, which can be purchased. It is a very valuable good, and having it can change a person's life. Which is why it is such a good thing to subsidize. Having people pay directly for their healthcare is a very bad idea.

At the end of the day ACA is a huge success and a historical piece of legislation. The results speak for themselves. Millions of people are better off and healthcare cost inflation is lower.

The amount of private sector involvement is irrelevant, except to blind ideologues like yourself. What matters is people, not corporations, and people are much better off than before due to ACA.

Which is why it should be a public good. The ACA is a Republican policy which ensures that will never happen. Your analogy was shit and it remains shit. People need affordable healthcare. They got insurance. Insurance may or may not be valuable but it's not what people need and it does not ensure they will get the necessary healthcare they need.

Because health insurance is the thing the ensures that people can access healthcare without paying for it directly. And which is why ACA is such a great achievement -- it provides millions of people with health insurance, and it does so by taxing wealthier people in order to subsidize lower income people.

There's an argument to be made that the government should be the one providing health insurance to everyone (single payer). There are also arguments against that. More importantly, that was never going to happen nationwide in 2008. They couldn't even get that passed in Vermont.

There are plenty of ways ACA could be made better. A public option is one. All states expanding Medicaid is another. And it's true that ACA doesn't achieve universal coverage, there are still a few gaps.

At the end of the day, though ACA is a huge step forward, and improved the lives of millions of people, controlled health care cost growth, and redistributed wealth progressively. It deserves all the celebrations it gets. If the Dems had gone with the single-payer or nothing strategy, then right now we would have nothing.

Premium costs continue to rise as do out of pocket expenses. People ARE paying directly for their healthcare through their out of pocket expenses. Insurance companies are consolidating into government protected monopolies with captive customers. You talk about political will? Where's the will take them on now or in the future when you and your fellow 3rd way "Democrats" sold out the public by solidifying both their position in the healthcare delivery AND the political debate?

Did you look at those charts? We have millions more people covered, and the cost inflation is lower. Costs are rising, but slower than before. And by the way, health care costs also rise in single payer systems. It's not a magic panacea.

Yes, there are co-pays and deductibles (depending on plan), so people pay some out of pocket. Of course, Medicare also has co-pays and deductibles.

Like I said, the results of ACA speak for themselves. The healthcare system is much better than it was before. I don't see how ignoring all the benefits and trashing ACA with right-wing talking points about exploding costs is going to help get to wherever you want us to get to. The fact that ACA is been so remarkably successful is the very best argument for further progressive reforms. Everyone who predicted Obamacare doom has been proven wrong.

When you have a $3000 out of pocket that is simply catastrophic coverage that still puts the price of a doctors visit completely out of reach for many people. The bill was not about healthcare. It was about insurance. It is not addressing the continually escalating and non-transparent healthcare costs. You have ensured that we will never provide alternatives to insurance industry vampires.

ACA did what it needed to do to cover people, it was imperfect as hell and we need Universal/Medicare for all, whatever you want to call it, but before you can get that you have to get the support in both houses.

Until you eliminate for profit hospitals other than for rich people who want private rooms, you will have costs go up.

Until you regulate costs from RX so that we arent overcharged for everything, you will have these costs.

Capitalism is a simple system, you charge the most you can for anything and everything, no matter what it costs to make, you decide what the most is by finding the breaking point of where people will stop buying, etc.

Let me explain it this way; if you produce a bottle of filtered water and your cost is 6 cents for the water and bottle and you sell a case of 36 for $4.99 when it cost you $2.16 to produce it, and then you have another .75 cents for overhead, now you are making a profit of 50% or whatever, I am not doing the math, just approximating.

But you find out that if you charge $99.00 for that case of water, there are enough people who will pay that so that your end profit will be more than if you sell it for $79.00. But the "sweet spot" is $89.00 so if you price it there you will make the most profit because there are even more people at that price who will buy, etc etc etc.

You WILL Be charged the MOST you can be on a profit model, NO MATTER the cost to produce. If this means your neighbor goes WITHOUT WATER and dies, so be it.

This is capitalism

When you have people in our party charged with writing the legislation baking in buy-in from the insurance industry before it has left the starting gate. The ACA is a perfect example of what is so wrong with both our political system and our party.

maybe you didnt need ACA.

Maybe the importance of it hasnt really hit you.

Sure, giving all that money to wall street is bullshit, but you MUST do that until you eliminate for profit insurance, or insurance period.

no other choice

You've simply strengthened the hand of the insurance providers. They now have a captive market and no incentive to give anything in negotiations. If you think government is going to regulate them in favor of the public good then you are observing a completely different dynamic than I am.

It makes NO sense for them to exist, at all.

They exist solely to take a cut out from the middle.

You eliminate them entirely, WHEN you have the political will to do so.

Until then, ACA and things like that improve access and save lives.

Do you care about those lives?

If you do, then who pays for it short term should not be your sole focus, should it.

...excludes too many people from meaningful relief, forces people to buy a private product they cannot afford....Pisses off average people and businesses who get caught in the web....etc.


And have you been following what those wily insurance companies are up to? They are trying to merge into a handful of true monopolists.

We can do a little better than that.

Medicare. Allow anyone who chooses to enroll to do so. Medicare is helped by younger healthier people enrolling. The cost of providing healthcare coverage is removed from the backs of business. Our system is completely fucked up and the ACA simply codified it. And it was the Democrats who pushed through this free-market Republican solution.

It doesn't stop rates from rising, though single payer doesn't stop healthcare costs from rising either. It does force people to buy a private product, but those that can't afford it are subsidized, and like I said these subsidies are funded by taxes that land mostly on the wealthy. Single payer wouldn't force people to buy a private product, but it would require roughly the same amount to be paid in taxes.

I'm not saying ACA is ideal, but it is a huge step forward, and the results are very good. I'm not convinced that single payer is the way to go in the US, and it's definitely not the only way -- several European countries have public/private hybrids that work just fine.

My main concern -- at least for the forseeable future -- is to provide options for everyone to have accesd to helth care that is affordable for them (i.e. based on income).

One of the problems with ACA is there are still a lot of holes that it is too easy to fall into if you're neither so well off you can afford the market rate nor so poor you qualify for subsidies or any assistance. I know people who have lost their "subsidized" coverage because they started making a little more money (but not enough to be able o afford the difference in premiums.

IMO the whole thing should have started with the public option of a widely available form of Medicare buy-in for basic coverage, available to everyone with premiums based on income. If someone choose to stay with private insurance fine. But they'd have an optin, and not have to do gyrations to qualify.

It is as simple as that. A public option will be an incremental step that the ACA made possible. Bernie is not going to get you single payer, or really anything if his previous record of accomplishing nothing is any indication.

We allowed a couple of assholes in Congress (who subsequently left Congress) totally undermine what should have been done as part of the first step towards a better system.

Sanders would at least lead -- on a public level -- the fight to make steps towards a better system. Probably not single payer next year, but not :"reform" that further embeds the power of insurers.

He at least has a belief in the concept of social (public) insurance, instead of allowing the private insurers and a few stooges in Congress to set us on a wrong direction.

payer in Vermont.

But, Obama did get would he could and millions appreciate that. I don't care who whines about it Obamacare on DU.

Many of Bernie's supporters on DU are all or nothing folks.

Below, we basically see that the ACA is not single payer, so we should have not done it.

Having a progressive President who gets nothing done, is not preferable to having a progressive President who actually makes real progress.

She has never favored privatization of safety nets, and has a 100% rating for protecting Social Security.

Who immediately took a specific proposal to reinstate a specific policy (Glass Steagall) off the table immediately after her specific-free speech of tough talk against Wall Street abuse.

Here's one of them: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/clinton-campaign-hires-former-wall-street-regulator-for-top-finance-post-117068.html

And she also has Stiglitz and Blinder.

By immediately taking reinstatement of Glass Steagall off the table.
Try again.

Republicans represent a clear and present danger and I'm looking forward to a Democratic electoral landslide. Personally, I believe Hillary has the best chance of accomplishing progress and unifying the Democratic party.

1. I would say she's a centrist (if her major opponent was a right-wing Democrat she would move that way).
2. I think she has a lower chance against the GOP. Middle class repubs can't resonate with her.
3. She doesn't have a good track record of being a negotiator in congress. Bernie has.

As well as her voting record. She's consistently on the liberal side of the Democratic party, and gets high marks from progressive groups across issues: choice, environment, unions, etc.

2) Bernie is (a) a self-described socialist and (b) lacks fundraising capacity, so he's pretty much a loss in the GE. If O'Malley can make some progress, one might argue that he could be electable, but he's probably too far left for the GE. Hillary is the best chance.

3) What has Bernie accomplished in congress? Hillary has a lot more allies, and has experience in the executive branch. The policies Bernie are proposing have no chance of going anywhere. Coming out of the gate with single payer and free college means accomplishing nothing. I give Hillary the nod when it comes to effectively fighting the GOP.

Pretending she isn't is just silly, IMO.

"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." John Quincy Adams

My principles, as a progressive, guide me to vote for the most progressive candidate on the ballot. i.e. Bernie.

I look forward to your future posts supporting Hillary. It is always good to arrive at a decision, the undecided state can be vexing.

The way that some people seem to everyone else is an illiterate idiot displays utter arrogance.

Particularly in the way they attempt to bully and denigrate POC and Hillary supporters.

On Fri Aug 21, 2015, 06:19 PM an alert was sent on the following post:

That's exactly how I see Bernie supporters
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=536012

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

Really? All Bernie supporters are racist bullies? This us against them language is making DU suck. I would alert anyone saying such things about any group.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Fri Aug 21, 2015, 06:27 PM, and the Jury voted 3-4 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: This is getting old, I am now starting to vote to hide this sort of thing. It isn't personal, but time to try and make DU usable again.
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Tough call. Yeah, it is a broad brush against all Bernie supporters. Yet deleting it would seem to show the very bullying the post is complaining about. As such, I lean towards keeping it. Let people state how they feel, and note to Bernie supporters. If you want to refudiate that claim, try NOT to be an obnoxious bully when you do so. BE the change. BE the example.
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: I don't see where they said all supporters. This kind of childish back and forth is what defines GD at this point anyway. There's far more appalling and egregious posts out there that are okayed.

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

1) Clinton is definitely a liberal, but I'm not sure she is a progressive. A true progressive might be stronger on regulating the financial industry, imposing protectionist trade legislation, stopping right-to-work laws, etc.
2) The recent DNC strategy of moving further to the right to capture the middle has to stop somewhere. I thought it was over when we elected Obama, but I hear it proposed as a winning move for the upcoming election. I have serious doubts about this, not just from an ideological perspective, but also because it might not work this time.
3) The Republicans will do their best to thwart any Democratic president. The hate they feel for Hillary Clinton is almost visceral, so a President Clinton would enjoy no more cooperation than a President Sanders.

The question becomes: How does one define "progressive"?

To me a progressive would

avoid war at any cost,

decry the XL pipeline,

decry the scheme of outsourcing,

decry secret trade agreements,

try to re-establish Glass Steagal law
as a small way of containing the greed of the banks,

aim to force the large corporations to pay their
fair amount of taxes.

Those are just a few items for me to be included
in the definition of "progressive".

Is that coinciding with your ideas?

nice to know. Oh Kennedy and Truman, not progressives. McGovern, who was a fighter pilot in WW2 (hardly avoiding war at all costs) not a progressive.

Is a fools errand.

Fine, yes, 1972. But far more relevant are 2004 and 2008.

In one, the supposedly "stronger" candidate had his supposed strengths - war hero, supporting the iraq invasion - turned against him.

In the other, buckets of self-congratulatory beltway conventional wisdom bullshit about how America would "never elect a one term AA senator with such a funny name" was proven to be decisively false.

That's just how it goes. The stronger candidate, the weaker candidate, doesn't matter. Whatever strengths or appeals they have will be attacked.

I'm more interested in how they handle the attacks and how they handle attacking Republican policies at this point than how they're attacking other Democrats.

The bulk of their ideas are out there in various forms and sites.

Show me how you're going to handle your real opponents. Make me want to vote for you in the primary based on that.

Last edited Fri Aug 21, 2015, 03:12 PM - Edit history (1)

I admire her, but I do not think she is our best choice.

Should she win the nomination, I will vote for her without hesitation.

Nonetheless, I think she is not our best candidate. I respectfully submit that O'Malley is both our best chance to retain the White House and the one candidate with the best concrete plans to improve working-class and middle-class American lives.

O'Malley has just today released a feasible plan to increase Social Security benefits by using the CPI-E calculation to accurately reflect health care costs, while giving an incentive to do child and elder care without losing benefits, to be paid for by lifting the FICA levy cap on wages over $250K.

This agenda is pro-growth, pro-family, and even pro-business, and should O'Malley not win the nomination I strongly urge the winning candidate to adopt it.

But I still think Hillary has better GE odds. The negative for her is the "Clinton baggage," but people forget that that also has a positive, since Bill Clinton and his presidency are looked upon pretty positively. Clinton also has more fundraising capacity -- arguably whoever becomes the nominee might inherit that fundraising, but I don't know if the get all of it or even most. And finally, O'Malley's platform might be too far left -- not for me, I like that kind of thing, but for the American electorate.

Yes, his SS plan is great, and makes a lot of sense. But he's immediately going to be hit as a "tax raiser."

To me that's a given. Clinton, Sanders, O'Malley, Webb, and even Chafee would face that.

I agree that O'Malley's platform is quite to the left of the electorate. But I think divided government is a given and that that does factor in to choices voters make.

Anyways, like I said in another thread, I'd be very happy to vote for any of them.

Although I wouldn't feel too great about Webb or Chafee, but I doubt that will happen anyway.

n/t

I'm not here to be all mean about it. Not sure I agree with your point two, but we really don't quite know at this point in time.

Just wanted to let you know, lol. Judging from some of the responses on this thread, some people seem pissed off about all sorts of stuff and take it out on the original poster of a thread. It makes me laugh.

Have a good weekend!

But then I started to believe that Sanders might be able to offer a better Democratic presidency (less status quo) and that I would support him all the way.