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The 2020 Presidential Election - Convention & General Election


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6 hours ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

No problem. I'll go point by point in my response.

 

Let me rephrase this. The government has largely clung to the status quo or passed middling changes to both of these during my lifetime. The one notable exception to this would be the passage of the ACA. Clinton tried healthcare reform during his administration and failed. Trump's administration passed right-wing reforms to healthcare and DeVos is operating the DoE like a right-wingers wet dream and these haven't improved. If anything they've gotten worse. We've done nothing substantial to actually address increasing healthcare & college costs. The Republican plan (?) of breaking stuff and doing nothing doesn't work.

 

I AM today's generation. It's not that I am less concerned with saving and investing. It's that I literally CAN'T lol. I started my first real job recently and proceeds have gone towards a small emergency fund, food & bills and paying down CC debt from when things got tight. There's nothing left over to invest/add to my emergency fund. And I make good money. I can only imagine the struggle of low wage earners.

 

All of your second paragraph is fine, but those people are still part of our society and not going anywhere. All the net worth chart tells us is that poorer people were disproportionately hammered by the economic environment here the past several decades, while the incredibly wealthy prospered comparatively.

 

Talking about greed is hilariously absurd when the right-wing economic doctrine relies on cutting taxes as low as possible for those who have the most & waiting for the benefit to trickle down to the rest of us (and claiming those who propose increasing tax rates for public benefit will destroy the economy).

 

I don't disagree with this one, but we could also do this collectively via more government action. FDR's solution to utility monopolies was not to give thanks for the monopolists' benevolence, but to create the TVA, which is a good example of the government using their power well to benefit everyone.

 

I appreciate the thoughtful response. A couple things I'd add: 

 

*I disagree that Trump passed anything substantial for healthcare. He scratched a couple individual and employer mandates from the unaffordable care act from my understanding, and then slapped his name on that monstrosity so he can be culpable for it failing. As @Guy Chamberlin stated, the exorbitant cost of health care/insurance is a giant issue that was greatly exacerbated by Obamacare. I've stated several times that our healthcare system is the worst possible system. It's a highly regulated, highly lobbied, highly protected system that results in little competition, no transparency in pricing, and no legal liability placed on pharmaceutical companies. We're likely trending in the direction of universal healthcare, which is likely better than we have now, but I definitely have concerns about how that's actually going to go. The government pretty much sucks at everything, so I have little hope that they'll do a good job of implementing it. 

 

*since you mentioned trickle down economics, I'll take the opportunity to just say that trickle down economics is a strawman created by Democrats to vilify lowering taxes. About 100 years of history on the income tax has shown definitively that no matter what the tax rates are, tax revenue is pretty much always around 17% of GDP. So with that information, you would think the focus would shift from raising taxes to facilitating an environment where people are incentivized to produce and purchase at higher rates so there's more circulation of money. 

 

*Regarding your anecdote about not being able to save, I'd have to take a look at the specifics of your situation to evaluate as that's not been my experience. I'm 29, I graduated from college with $35k in debt and have paid that down to under $8k currently, i own several businesses, and I'm the first couple years my actual salary from those businesses would technically have put me near the poverty line. With that and my wife's income, we've been able to pay off the debt on our first business, pay off my wife's $16k car loan, paid cash for my vehicle, and put a 20% down payment on a house. We were smart with our money and made sacrifices early in our careers that other people don't make. Most people just aren't good with money and that's why a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck. 

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21 minutes ago, ActualCornHusker said:

 

I appreciate the thoughtful response. A couple things I'd add: 

 

*I disagree that Trump passed anything substantial for healthcare. He scratched a couple individual and employer mandates from the unaffordable care act from my understanding, and then slapped his name on that monstrosity so he can be culpable for it failing. As @Guy Chamberlin stated, the exorbitant cost of health care/insurance is a giant issue that was greatly exacerbated by Obamacare. I've stated several times that our healthcare system is the worst possible system. It's a highly regulated, highly lobbied, highly protected system that results in little competition, no transparency in pricing, and no legal liability placed on pharmaceutical companies. We're likely trending in the direction of universal healthcare, which is likely better than we have now, but I definitely have concerns about how that's actually going to go. The government pretty much sucks at everything, so I have little hope that they'll do a good job of implementing it. 

 

*since you mentioned trickle down economics, I'll take the opportunity to just say that trickle down economics is a strawman created by Democrats to vilify lowering taxes. About 100 years of history on the income tax has shown definitively that no matter what the tax rates are, tax revenue is pretty much always around 17% of GDP. So with that information, you would think the focus would shift from raising taxes to facilitating an environment where people are incentivized to produce and purchase at higher rates so there's more circulation of money. 

 

*Regarding your anecdote about not being able to save, I'd have to take a look at the specifics of your situation to evaluate as that's not been my experience. I'm 29, I graduated from college with $35k in debt and have paid that down to under $8k currently, i own several businesses, and I'm the first couple years my actual salary from those businesses would technically have put me near the poverty line. With that and my wife's income, we've been able to pay off the debt on our first business, pay off my wife's $16k car loan, paid cash for my vehicle, and put a 20% down payment on a house. We were smart with our money and made sacrifices early in our careers that other people don't make. Most people just aren't good with money and that's why a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck. 


In your ideal healthcare world, which I assume is a free market with no regulations at all, what would the incentive for health insurance companies to insure sick or poor people? How would costs go down for middle class families? What would suddenly make insurance companies and big pharma do the right thing when their main objective os to make profit and keep their investors happy? What would keep them from continuing to price gouge and raise prices at the same time as other companies do, like in the case with insulin?

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13 hours ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

Last year, a third of our family income went to health insurance..

 

Not healthcare. Health insurance.

 

 

It is unbelievable isn't it.  My work's group policy went up another 15% for 2020 wt increases in deductibles on top of it.  We had to change to a higher deductible option just to keep the premium somewhat close to where it was just to not bust the budget.  So we take the risk of hoping that we don't need to go to the hospital and use the high deductible vs keeping our premium somewhat the same.

Next year in June my wife will be medicare age and we will switch immediately. I will be the same at the end of Dec.  Medicare will have a less expensive premium (Part A is free, pay for part D and part G or N), better benefits and by far less out of pocket expenses.  All of a sudden, I'm starting to like the Medicare for All option if we can find a way to finance it without breaking the system.  I don't fully understand what medicare for all would look like - maybe premiums and co-insurances go up  - I don't know. But based on the ever increasing group insurance costs - I'm open to the discussion.

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12 hours ago, ActualCornHusker said:

 

. As @Guy Chamberlin stated, the exorbitant cost of health care/insurance is a giant issue that was greatly exacerbated by Obamacare. 

 

Not quite what I said. Obamacare was actually a huge help to our family, and it was only when my wife got a job that eliminated our Obamacare subsidy and replaced it with an astronomical private insurance "benefit" did our health insurance suck up a third of our income. My son and I switched back to Obamacare, wife and daughter went on separate plans and we will now save $1,000 a month without a federal subsidy. 

 

But yeah. It was a horrible issue before Obamacare, and costs did rise after Obamacare, but much of that was due to resistance from Red State governors who thwarted the statewide rollouts that were important to the economy of scale Obamacare required, some of it simply from insurance companies and healthcare interests determined to pass along expenses to consumers, and some of it from Obamacare's admittedly poor implementation. 

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13 hours ago, Frott Scost said:


In your ideal healthcare world, which I assume is a free market with no regulations at all, what would the incentive for health insurance companies to insure sick or poor people? How would costs go down for middle class families? What would suddenly make insurance companies and big pharma do the right thing when their main objective os to make profit and keep their investors happy? What would keep them from continuing to price gouge and raise prices at the same time as other companies do, like in the case with insulin?

 

Good questions. Healthcare is obviously a complicated situation, and many of the details I'm not privy to tbh. But there would be a few simple things you could do in a mostly free market healthcare system that would make the best possible healthcare system IMO. I'll go through your questions not necessarily in order with the preface that I don't have all the answers, and I haven't given a ton of thought to an actual model:

 

"How would costs go down for middle class families? What would suddenly make insurance companies and big pharma do the right thing when their main objective os to make profit and keep their investors happy? What would keep them from continuing to price gouge and raise prices at the same time as other companies do, like in the case with insulin?"

 

In an open and mostly free market, the main things that cause prices to go down are competition and transparency in pricing. We have that in literally every other industry, so why not healthcare? Well, mainly because that's either been allowed, enabled, or enforced by the government. Example:

 

Quote

Complicating the problem are two pieces of legislation pushed by big pharma that further distort the current pricing process. First, the prohibition on importing drugs from other countries allows pharmaceutical companies to continue to discriminate on an economic basis against patients in the United States. Second, the federal government is restricted from negotiating prices on behalf of U.S. citizens, unlike governments around the rest of the globe, thus guaranteeing Americans will pay more. As a result, our nation uses approximately 40% of the drug products manufactured but funds two-thirds of the profits generated by these global conglomerates.

 

There is a long list of protections that pharmaceutical companies are provided by our inept government due to lobbying (bribes) of our politicians. More examples HERE 

 

Additionally, drug patents are over-protected which restricts the market and causes prices to go up. So you could suggest getting rid of patents for pharmaceutical drugs. The question would be: what effect will this have? The positive effect would be that more forms of the drug could be available, which increases competition and lowers the price (as long as there's transparency). The negative side would be less incentive for companies to spend billions in R&D to develop new drugs.

 

Another change I'd make would be lessening the barrier for new drugs and procedures to be available, in addition to expanding right-to-try laws. If someone is dying from cancer and they want to try a treatment method, but the government doesn't allow certain drugs/treatments, I think that's bull. Similar to the war on recreational drugs, what people choose to put into their own body should be no business of anyone else.

 

I'd differ greatly from most people on this board in where the blame falls for lobbyists having so much influence. Most people in this forum blame the "evil, greedy businessman" for lobbying. They're simply doing what is best for themselves and their business. I blame the politicians whose job is to represent the people of the country and do good on our behalf for accepting the bribes - and it's people from both parties. It's almost always inevitably the type of person you'd least trust with power who ends up seeking positions of power, which is the great flaw in the leftist/liberal/democrat way of thinking.

 

"In a free market with no regulations at all, what would the incentive for health insurance companies to insure sick or poor people?"

 

THAT is the great drawback to free market for healthcare, admittedly. Insurance is a giant risk pool, and the less healthy the person, the greater risk they are to the pool in terms of financial exposure. So if we insist that these people should be covered (which I'd agree with), then there are a few options:

1. force insurance companies to cover all people (ACA)

   -This increases the financial exposure to risk pools, causing EVERYONE's premiums to skyrocket, and no one is happy.

2. Create a government run segment of healthcare to cover people who can't get covered by insurance

   -We'd have to add more taxes to people to pay for it, and no one is happy.

3. Rely on private charity to help people who are uninsurable. 

   -This is the way it was meant to work in a free market. It's not a guaranteed form of coverage, but it would be most economical, as the person receiving the care would be concerned about the cost.

 

Overall, the main issue with healthcare is the cost, and if we just peel back some of the idiotic protections that are in place for pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers (call it regulation if you must). I'll say it again: universal healthcare is likely better than what we have in place currently, but that's mainly because the system we have now is outrageously over-protected, over-regulated, over-subsidized, and unaccountable. It's neither universal nor anything close to a free and open market.

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1 minute ago, BlitzFirst said:

 

I think what you said above is a well thought out comment...I'm not trying to say you don't mean what you say.  I'm trying to tell you that it's wrong.

 

I suggest you do some research on William F. Weld and what he did in the 1990's with healthcare...because you're saying someone needs to do the exact same thing again in order to fix the system.  Seriously, if you don't remember what happened with Weld, please go look it up.  Then examine what you said above and see if you think it still will hold water.

 

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I think it appears that medicare-for-all or some form of universal healthcare is fairly inevitable at this point. A couple years ago I was pretty vehemently opposed, so my views have warped a fair amount on that issue. 

 

I will do some reading on Weld. I was pretty young then for me to remember :P 

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25 minutes ago, ActualCornHusker said:

 

Good questions. Healthcare is obviously a complicated situation, and many of the details I'm not privy to tbh. But there would be a few simple things you could do in a mostly free market healthcare system that would make the best possible healthcare system IMO. I'll go through your questions not necessarily in order with the preface that I don't have all the answers, and I haven't given a ton of thought to an actual model:

 

"How would costs go down for middle class families? What would suddenly make insurance companies and big pharma do the right thing when their main objective os to make profit and keep their investors happy? What would keep them from continuing to price gouge and raise prices at the same time as other companies do, like in the case with insulin?"

 

In an open and mostly free market, the main things that cause prices to go down are competition and transparency in pricing. We have that in literally every other industry, so why not healthcare? Well, mainly because that's either been allowed, enabled, or enforced by the government. Example:

 

 

There is a long list of protections that pharmaceutical companies are provided by our inept government due to lobbying (bribes) of our politicians. More examples HERE 

 

Additionally, drug patents are over-protected which restricts the market and causes prices to go up. So you could suggest getting rid of patents for pharmaceutical drugs. The question would be: what effect will this have? The positive effect would be that more forms of the drug could be available, which increases competition and lowers the price (as long as there's transparency). The negative side would be less incentive for companies to spend billions in R&D to develop new drugs.

 

Another change I'd make would be lessening the barrier for new drugs and procedures to be available, in addition to expanding right-to-try laws. If someone is dying from cancer and they want to try a treatment method, but the government doesn't allow certain drugs/treatments, I think that's bull. Similar to the war on recreational drugs, what people choose to put into their own body should be no business of anyone else.

 

I'd differ greatly from most people on this board in where the blame falls for lobbyists having so much influence. Most people in this forum blame the "evil, greedy businessman" for lobbying. They're simply doing what is best for themselves and their business. I blame the politicians whose job is to represent the people of the country and do good on our behalf for accepting the bribes - and it's people from both parties. It's almost always inevitably the type of person you'd least trust with power who ends up seeking positions of power, which is the great flaw in the leftist/liberal/democrat way of thinking.

 

"In a free market with no regulations at all, what would the incentive for health insurance companies to insure sick or poor people?"

 

THAT is the great drawback to free market for healthcare, admittedly. Insurance is a giant risk pool, and the less healthy the person, the greater risk they are to the pool in terms of financial exposure. So if we insist that these people should be covered (which I'd agree with), then there are a few options:

1. force insurance companies to cover all people (ACA)

   -This increases the financial exposure to risk pools, causing EVERYONE's premiums to skyrocket, and no one is happy.

2. Create a government run segment of healthcare to cover people who can't get covered by insurance

   -We'd have to add more taxes to people to pay for it, and no one is happy.

3. Rely on private charity to help people who are uninsurable. 

   -This is the way it was meant to work in a free market. It's not a guaranteed form of coverage, but it would be most economical, as the person receiving the care would be concerned about the cost.

 

Overall, the main issue with healthcare is the cost, and if we just peel back some of the idiotic protections that are in place for pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers (call it regulation if you must). I'll say it again: universal healthcare is likely better than what we have in place currently, but that's mainly because the system we have now is outrageously over-protected, over-regulated, over-subsidized, and unaccountable. It's neither universal nor anything close to a free and open market.


Bernie Sanders plan to lower drug prices are literally the three things mentioned in your post. 
1.  Let pharmacies import drugs from other countries. 
2. Let the govt. negotiate prices. 
3. Have more generic forms of each drug on the market. 
 

R&D is subsidized by taxpayers and profits are privatized. Pharm companies spend more in advertising than they do R&D. 
 

So correct me if Im wrong, but you are against the current form of govt. Govt that actually does what its meant to do, work for the people would be better in your eyes? Same here. 
 

In your ideal healthcare world of private charity, my brother who is type 1 diabetic would rely on the generosity of other people and of the charity who may or may not have enough funding to cover him and can tell him no at any point. Yeah no thanks. 

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2 minutes ago, Frott Scost said:

 

So correct me if Im wrong, but you are against the current form of govt. Govt that actually does what its meant to do, work for the people would be better in your eyes? Same here. 
 

 

In my eyes (and in the eyes of the founding fathers), the type of government that you mean by "work for the people" is much different than how I would define it, but generally, I agree. I'd refer again to this:

 

Quote

It's almost always inevitably the type of person you'd least trust with power who ends up seeking positions of power

 

2 minutes ago, BlitzFirst said:

In a free market, GREED has to be removed to drive prices down and you can't do that through deregulation. 

 

 

I couldn't disagree with you more on this point. I'm assuming you consider Amazon greedy - How come their prices are so low?

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2 minutes ago, BlitzFirst said:

 

Because of its size and scale...allows it to charge lower prices and take lower profit margins.  Increased sales volume means they rake in profits.

 

So, bad example

 

Knapplc answered what I was getting at:

 

5 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

Amazon is not a monopoly. Competition drives pricing down. 

 

 

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9 minutes ago, BlitzFirst said:

 

It's a straw man. 

 

All you took from my entire comment was one mention of the word GREED and you ran with it.  Constructed that puppy up and attacked it.

 

Regardless, my answer is more the reason...not because Amazon isn't a monopoly.

 

 

Uhhh..... If I misunderstood you then you're welcome to clarify, but this is your full statement, which is definitely incorrect....

 

36 minutes ago, BlitzFirst said:

In a free market, GREED has to be removed to drive prices down and you can't do that through deregulation. 

 

 

:dunno

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Competition drives prices down, but companies with deep pockets can drive prices down to the point that they eliminate smaller competitors, at which point they start ratcheting prices back up because people have nowhere else to go. 

 

It's no secret that Jeff Bezos want to sell everything on Earth through Amazon. 

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17 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

Competition drives prices down, but companies with deep pockets can drive prices down to the point that they eliminate smaller competitors, at which point they start ratcheting prices back up because people have nowhere else to go. 

 

It's no secret that Jeff Bezos want to sell everything on Earth through Amazon. 

 

You are not wrong. Large companies do so not only through lowering prices - they also lobby for greater regulation on their industry (including min wage) because they can absorb the additional cost and their smaller competitors can't. This is the exact method of pharmaceutical companies - which is one actual legitimate role of government: 1) to break up monopolies when needed, and 2) to facilitate a business friendly atmosphere (minimal regulations & taxes) so that there is ability for new competitors to emerge. That's great for everyone, because businesses don't just compete for customers - they also compete for workers. So if companies want better employees, they have to offer higher wages and better benefits.

 

I'd also segue to the claim of our upper income tax rates being too low:

 

LINK

Quote

The United States has the highest corporate tax rate of the 34 developed, free-market nations that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The marginal corporate tax rate in the United States is 35% at the federal level and 39.2% once state taxes are accounted for, according to the 2013 OECD Tax Database. The global average is much lower, at 25%. Switzerland enjoys the lowest national rate, at 8.5%, but its rate increases to 21.1% after factoring in local taxes, giving Ireland the lowest overall rate, at 12.5%. The high tax rate on U.S. corporations, combined with worldwide taxation, impacts American businesses in several ways - some would argue, negatively.

 

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