I’m very not sure about how to evaluate the end of the shutdown.
On the one side, they didn’t pull through with playing hardball, on the other hand, I’m not sure whether people would have gotten better results if the shutdown would have gone on for longer.
The rich assholes in Washington do not care about us. They are set for life with the best Healthcare in the world. Why should they care about us?
Fuck the democrats. Fuck the Republicans more, but these democrats need to fucking go as well. They all need to go.
Incredibly relevant discourse for the current US political environment
Apologies for reddit link, can’t upload video directly in a comment on lemmy. The information this individual covers is absolutely vital for understanding modern politics in the US, and needs to be common knowledge if the US is ever going to recover from the exploitation that has led us here.
Most on lemmy will already be aware of the basics covered here, but for anyone confused as to why dems always choose failure in the most frustrating ways, this will explain it for you. This is why we need to support actual progressives who refuse to be bought and paid for.
First we need actual progressives to run.
We need to restructure politics. Screw republicans, democrats, they’re all just deceptive proxies. I want to see the Working Class Party, the Corporate Class Party, … drop the shenanigans and let people think for themselves for once.
Bernie should have started 3rd party when they cheated him out of the presidential nomination. He played it safe and achieved nothing.
Oh, yeah. Bernie Sanders achieved nothing. What a wonderfully well grounded take. Not delusional at all. 🙄
Third party won’t work in a FPTP system.
We can pass RCV in local elections across the country, but progressive Dems need to work within the party lines to get shit done.
And he is a 3rd party: Democratic Socialist.
Having two parties also doesn’t work in any meaningful way. Democrats lost presidential elections to a convicted criminal and are unable to effectively use the tiny amount of power they still have. Yes, splitting Democratic vote would hand all the elections to Republicans but they ended up controlling everything anyway and people still don’t have any real alternative. Destroying and rebuilding the Democratic party from scratch would get you closer to a functioning system than trying to work withing party lines.
Bernie lost almost a decade ago. The political scene would look completely different by now (maybe some sort of joined primaries between Dems and Bernie’s party). He had a once in a lifetime chance to really change the system but chose not do do it.
but they ended up controlling everything anyway
Republicans have been completely aligned since Trump came into office. Democrats instead have had spoiler candidates that have almost completely ruined their plans in the Biden Admin.
We should be focused on primary-ing out the moderates and establishment candidates in the party. Yes the DNC always has the ability to shut shit down as they did in 2016 with Bernie, but if the movement is strong enough, I wager that won’t matter.
chose not do do it
Bernie got snubbed by the DNC in 2016??? Hello?
And Biden capitulated to Bernie in 2020 by adopting his policies, only later abandoning them like an asshole.
Bernie has rarely chosen at any point NOT to change the system.
I obviously meant that Bernie chose not to start a 3rd party, not that he chose not to be president.
That the Dems in general and Biden specifically had no intention of implementing any of Bernie’s policies was obvious to anyone who was paying attention. Democrats are simply a part of GOP with better PR. Their main function is to fight candidates like Bernie with “don’t split the vote” argument. It worked perfectly and now democracy in US is nearly dead.
3rd party crushes the other two in FPTP with enough votes. Also, I believe Bernie is technically an “independent”
How did the Greens work out?
I agree that FPTP is shit and we need something different. Most Americans are too loyal, stupid, or apathetic to care about a random 3rd party on the ballot.
We need name brand recognition with people, and you do that will the Democrats. What we also need is a coalition of progressives in the Dems that actively politick about working class issues like Bernie Sanders to counter the moderates.
My point is we’ve needed this for decades, and Dems consistently side with the donors against the working class.
We’re at a moment where both progressives and maga folk are interested in real populism. It could be enough to siphon the necessary voters for a plurality win, and I think we have a far better chance for progress with this strategy as opposed to trying to reform the corporate Dem establishment. They’re too addicted to the money, and will spend millions to crush any challenge from the left. They fight the left far harder than they fight Republican.
Why is it you think that the Dems can be successfully reformed from within , given their history?
Because there are currently Democrats that haven’t caved to donor pressure?
Americans are too stupid to vote for a 3rd party and they’re too stupid to implement any kind of ranked choice voting.
We all suffer because of our collective stupidity, and rich people continue to profit off of it.
It is frustrating to watch. Each party chooses a candidate that party members want and neither candidate represents what the majority of voters want but they’re forced to pick one or the other. There is surely enough voters who want something different to elect a third candidate but people are afraid that splitting the vote will lead to the worst candidate winning and so vote for one of the two parties, feeling like there is no other option.
Canada has the same problem. A lot of us wanted to vote NDP in April, but were afraid splitting the vote would lead to a conservative win and so we voted liberal.
Oh no, we aren’t too stupid to implement ranked choice voting, we live in a country run by people who have a vested interest in not implementing it
Por que no los dos?
MA lost the ballot initiative for ranked choice voting by lobbyists who made enough people believe it’s too complicated.
Too complicated? Motherfucker you’ve been ranking favorite things longer than you’ve been shitting on a toilet.
ooh now im thinking lets just do tier list of canidates.
That’s almost literally exactly what RCV is.
almost. the problem with tier lists is maga folks would put trump as S tier and someone like me would not rank anyone above B and more likely C.
Extremely ignorant take. The majority of people want ranked choice, the government is just setup in such a way that it is exceedingly difficult to achieve, though there are people trying. Plus a 3rd party has literally zero chance until that happens so you even bringing that up demonstrates how fucking stupid your plan actually is
But why bother using your brain when you can just whine about Ameridumbs ehhahhehahehhhahahehhahehahahahhehahah
The primaries are the equiivalent of ranked choice voting. The idea is that each party, so each side of the political spectrum, brings out their “best” candidates and the populace votes on who best represents them. The winners of that move on to the general.
It isn’t quite the same but it also isn’t THAT far off the reality of how the votes turn out when the counting is done. And, theoretically, it encourages party platforms that incorporate the more popular parts of each popular candidate’s platforms. And that… sometimes happens.
You have absolutely no idea how ranked choice or primaries work.
Let’s suppose the Democrat primary has two progressives and one neolib. The progressives get 28% and 32% of the vote…a total of 60% of the vote. The one neolib gets 40%.
Progressive policies are more popular, but neolib won.
This is the curse of FPTP.
Ranked choice would say that those 60% prefer one or the other progressive with the neolib being last. The result is theore popular progressive won, and more importantly, a progressive won.
It sounds like the progressives just need to coalesce around one candidate in the primary then, like the neolibs have done, and then they would win.
It sounds like you’re opposed to having more choice in who represents you.
As opposed to ranked choice where no candidate gets a plurality, both progressives get eliminated, and the second choice “neolib” votes win? Because “the neolib” is also getting a fair amount of moderate and even conservative votes.
At which point “the neolib” flips everyone off and wins? As opposed to needs to convince the two progressives to support them in exchange for platform concessions?
Ranked choice would say that those 60% prefer one or the other progressive with the neolib being last. The result is theore popular progressive won, and more importantly, a progressive won.
Or we can just simplify your post to “under this system, people will vote the way I want them to” and leave it at that?
Achieved nothing? He inspired an entire generation, who were previously apathetic regarding politics, to begin engaging in the political system.
Where’d they go? Lol
You forgot the “/s”.
You couldn’t be more wrong.
And then went on to say Israel has the “absolute right to defend itself” (against resistance from those they genocide)
Don’t take it out of context and make shit up.
"Israel, like any other country, has the right to defend itself from terrorism but not the right to wage all-out war against the Palestinian people.”
Wrong quote bud. This was an email I personally got in the days after Oct. 7
full quote
There have been five wars fought between Israel and its neighbors in the last fifteen years. Over that time, and before, there have been thousands of diplomats from around the world working on a variety of plans to bring peace and stability to the region, and hundreds of conferences. They have all failed.
Today, the situation in the area is more horrific, more brutal, more inhumane, and more dangerous than ever before. I wish I could tell you that I had some magic solution, or five-point plan to resolve this never-ending crisis. I don’t. But this I do know.
The barbarous terrorist act committed by Hamas against innocent men, women, and children in Israel was a horrific act that must be strongly condemned by the entire world. There is absolutely no justification for shooting down hundreds of young people at a music festival, killing babies in cold blood and taking hostages. In my view, the state of Israel has the absolute right to defend itself against Hamas’ terrorism.
It is also clear that this attack will only embolden the extremists on both sides who see violence as the only answer. It also creates the immediate possibility of a wider war in the area with unforeseen and dangerous consequences.
But in the midst of the terrorism, the missiles and bombs being exploded daily, and a hospital in Gaza being destroyed, there is another humanitarian disaster that is unfolding. Today, as a result of an Israeli evacuation order, hundreds of thousands of innocent and desperate people in Gaza are facing inhumane and life-threatening conditions. These are people who have been driven from their homes, who have no food, water, or fuel, who don’t know where they are going or who will accept them or if they will ever again return to their homes. And I would remind you that half of those people are children.
Last night, on the floor of the Senate, I blocked an effort on the part of some Republicans to prevent desperately needed humanitarian aid from the United Nations and other relief agencies from getting to these Palestinians.
In these very difficult times, we cannot turn our backs on these innocent men, women and children who are desperately trying to survive. That is not what this country must ever be about.
I hope you’ll watch and share it today:
https://x.com/sensanders/status/1714806126863143292?amp%3Bt=VjJ-cjQEBBD1s8bwm18Jyw
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
And in any case I still disagree with the statement that they “have the right to defend themselves” from Palestinian resistance. Any tragedy that happened during Oct 7 is 100% the fault of the Israeli regime and they should be held responsible.
You don’t get to illegally occupy, settle, and genocide a country for decades until they are in an extreme power imbalance then cry foul when they are forced to fight back in any way they can.
Ah, so you’re saying that between the initial attack but before Israel’s genocide you get to infer today Bernie supported genocide before the genocide occurred, yet ignore the context where he clearly denounced it after it was occurring? You’re full of crap, dude.
between the initial attack but before Israel’s genocide
It’s impressive how deeply ingrained Zionist propaganda is, that even people against genocide repeat their talking points.
before Israel’s genocide
Do… do you really think the genocide started after Oct. 7??? It’s been going for decades. What are you talking about???
Yeah I’ll say his tone shifted after somewhat, but the fact that it took the genocide escalating and becoming an important news topic to do it really soured my opinion of him.
Yeah, I do. An institutionalized and systemic prejudicial harassment of a population is not genocide. I suggest you stop using that word seeing as you clearly don’t know what it means.
That’s up for debate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_genocide_accusation
But sure rules-lawyer and break out the calipers to call it genocide or not. It doesn’t matter - the systematic oppression that the Israeli regime inflicted upon Palestine since the 40’s negates any right Israel has to “self-defense” regardless of if you so deem it “genocide” or no.
in the days after Oct. 7
So after Hamas murdered and kidnapped hundreds and before people could know what Israel was about to do?
It… Doesn’t matter? I called the email out publicly even on the same day I received it. They did not have the “right” to defend themselves before, during, or after Oct. 7. You don’t get to “fight fair” with those you brutally oppress.
I always know I’m on Lemmy.world when comments like yours are mass-downvoted. It’s strangely comforting knowing Lemmy has its own r/politics.
And once again Bernie Sanders is fucking correct
I really wish Bernie would enter the presidential as an independent. Not necessarily as the presidential pick but maybe as VP, given his age. Although if you see how the annoying orange has been doing recently I think Bernie could take over even in 4 years from now and be better.
I fear that by doing that it would split the left vote. Resulting in more easy Republican victories.
Perhaps. Or he could rally a whole bunch of the republican voters to vote for him as well. At this point you’re basically choosing between 2 evils every election, the borderline nazi evil and the complacent evil. Either one is not getting things done the way they should and maybe a solid 3rd candidate could change that.
What if all American’s cancel their insurance. Why are we paying these people for a service that they don’t provide!? If I’m going to be sick and broke because my insurance is too expensive to actually use, why not be sick and broke while not giving them our money.
This is not coming from a mean spirited place, but “what if all American’s cancel their insurance?” Well, it will never happen unless there’s a practical, immediate, and acceptable alternative available. So, we can feel free to play through the scenario in our heads, but if I’m going to go day dreaming, I’m going to dream about stuff that’s way more fun to think about than health insurance (like what if I had superhero powers or what if I won the lottery jackpot).
The hard reality is that healthcare without some kind of medical coverage (insurance, medicare, medicaid, etc) in the USA is not practical. Younger and healthier folks, people without kids or other dependents, and things like that can make do without, and many do.
However, there’s already a huge pool of people who get free or significantly reduced cost coverage via programs like the VA (for veterans), Medicare (for seniors), and Medicaid (for poor and disabled). Another giant pool of people receive heavily subsidized health insurance via their employers, because the employers pay some or all of the premiums. Although that group often complains about the cost and quality, many/most of them still know that it’s very risky to go without and that there’s at least some level of return on investment there that makes it still worth it. Then sandwiched in with that group are the young adults who are on their parents’ insurance so they don’t really pay for it themselves anyway.
While those groups are full of people who are like minded and want to see reform, you’ll never see significant push back and willingness to stop paying from those groups. So, it’s really only a relatively small block of Americans who are bearing the entire brunt of their health insurance costs and who could potentially get by without it, who would also be willing to. And that pool isn’t likely large enough to affect significant change on its own. You’ll basically get half the country telling them to get a job (completely ignorant of the reality of the situation), another third of the country telling them that it’s a choice they made and others shouldn’t have to pay for it, and the bulk of the remainder that aligns ideologically but who aren’t in a position to drop their healthcare coverage.
Keeping in mind that I’ve obviously glossed over a lot of details and caveats because at the end of the day this is just a long assed comment and not a dissertation.
well because 3 times the premium cost is still far below the cost of surgery. i am currently recovering from the removal of a cyst in my jaw that ate half my jaw leaving bone barely 3 playing cards thick in some areas. there was nothing i could have done to avoid it. the surgery too make the marsupilisation to drain the area alone was $3500, with only pain numbing. still awaiting the final surgery cost, but the anastegeologist is $1500 that i have to pay. and the stitches from my mandolin accident costs me an additional $1500.
this is ALL what i have to pay, while i have silver level coverage
marsupilisation
anastegeologist
mandolin accident
Hmm
Just send the bill to your congress person. It’s on them to solve this problem. That’s kinda why we put them in office.
What if all American’s cancel their insurance. Why are we paying these people for a service that they don’t provide!?
Because then that annual physical goes from costing you 20 dollars out of pocket to almost 900 once the bloodwork is added.
If I’m going to be sick and broke because my insurance is too expensive to actually use,
And that is the real crux of it and why we need single payer/m4a. You, like most people, are approaching health insurance as something you need when you are sick.
The reality is that health insurance is something you have so you don’t actually get sick. You engage in preventative care whether that is vaccinations or just getting that lump checked out while it is still “you are either fat or have cancer” rather than “if we don’t cut out a large chunk of your leg, you are going to die” and so forth. Get your teeth cleaned rather than filled with epoxies and so forth.
And… that is also a big chunk of why it is so expensive. Because hospitals are generally staffed by people who give a shit (even if they often aren’t owned by folk that do…) and needing to care for people who don’t have insurance is a thing (at least in emergencies. But it isn’t like we live in a country where there are one or more mass shootings a day…). So the idea is that Mr Wilkerson, who has insurance, will pay out the nose on aspirin so that Mr Carey, who doesn’t, can get a hit of the mediocre stuff.
Which also leads to the complete fuckery of insurance companies being aware of that and more or less insisting on a system where they are billed something truly insane (10k for a tablet of aspirin!) so that they can use the power of collective bargaining to get that down to something “reasonable” (50 dollars per tablet of aspirin!) that they then have a co-pay on. Whereas people who don’t have insurance get that insane bill and need to fight for themselves and/or go bankrupt.
Who’s out there getting annual physicals?
Asked if Schumer should be replaced, Sanders replied: “By whom? That’s the point.”
But he offered a less-than-ringing endorsement of the top Senate Democrat, who Sanders said belongs to the party’s “corporate wing.” Sanders also said “it goes deeper than Schumer.”
A politician is just a politician at the end of the day, but common sense should tell you that there are still degrees trustworthiness even among politicians. Comparing the immediate responses yesterday to the news that the Dems had caved, should make everyone really think about Sander’s response to this question, and what he’s really saying here.
When I compare the immediate response of the Dem I trust the most to the response of the Dem I trust the least, both seemed upset by this news. However, only one seemed genuinely perplexed, and immediately expressed his frustration on behalf of the Americans who would be harmed by the decision to cave. The other immediately began to push a strategy narrative calling for new leadership in the party.
Both gave subsequent interviews. One used every news outlet that would have him to continue spreading the narrative calling for new leadership. The other, again focused on the harm this would do to Americans. 24 hours later, guess which talking point has received the most attention?
When asked how he felt about calls for new leadership, for some reason the Dem that I trust the most didn’t immediately hop on the band wagon that everyone else has been hyper focused on for the past 24 hours, but it’s definitely not because he thinks the current leader of the party is the strongest and the most effective.
Replaced by whom? That’s the point.
Can someone explain to me simply (and I’m assuming the answer to that is “no”), why they can’t force the insurance companies to compete with each other on price. That would seem to be the obvious “free market republican” thing to do, and a prerequisite for removing the fat subsidy to the insurance companies that they’re currently trying to remove.
So insurance companies have to pay back out to their insured 85% of all money they collect each year. Been that way since the 1970’s.
What this means is that they WANT medical costs to be as high as possible. 15% of a $2,000 ambulance ride is a lot more than 15% of a $500 ambulance ride.
So the insurance companies have spent decades forcing hospitals to increase costs (charge more or we’ll make your hospital out of our network and no one will come to your hospital).
What this means is that as long as insurance companies exist, there isn’t really a “compete on costs” possibility. They’re already paying back out 85%. At most they might be able to make things 5% cheaper. There’s no competition because there’s no real areas to cut costs, by design.
The only fix is to eliminate insurance all together and go single payer, or to legally force hospitals to drop all their billing costs down to levels on par with the rest of the world, and both those options will be fought tooth and nail by insurance companies, since one would make their business disappear and the later would make their 15% cut for profits and overhead vastly smaller.
Another factor is that insurance companies make money on the “float”, meaning that they invest the premiums and keep the returns before paying out on claims. In times where rates of return on investment are high, they can be profitable overall even if claim payouts are larger than premiums collected. If medical costs are high then so are premiums and they make even more money off the float.
Because insurance doesn’t work like a normal product or good.
What ends up happening is they charge as much as they possibly can. The book “an American sickness” explains all the problems if you’re interested.
The ACA was never going to be great. It was the best that could get passed.
It wasn’t the best that could get passed. The Dems had a super majority during Obama’s 1st two years and could have gotten us Medicare for all, but Rahm Emmanuel blocked it.
Rahm wasn’t the bad guy. He was one of many bad guys. The list of Democrats (politicians, not voters) who were actually for Medicare for all was smaller than the list who were actually against it. Not because it would be bad policy, but because $$$$.
Joe Lieberman blocked it. Rahm Emanuel was just the president’s chief of staff who tried to talk him out of it. Joe Lieberman was the senator from Connecticut, where all the old money lives.
Lieberman blocked the public option
Fuckin’ jowely Joe. Fucked us.
The Dems had a super majority during Obama’s 1st two years
Nope. Even for the ~60 days they technically had it, they still had to contend with Senator Byrd being out of session due to health issues.
PBMS was a cool invention – for corporate healthcare.
Cuz health insurance and health care are both very expensive fields, and they’re in opposition to each other, so they both tend towards monopoly.
And from the consumer’s perspective:
- It’s hard to predict your health care needs
- It’s hard to comparison shop during a health emergency
- It’s hard to predict how your health care will get coded to the insurer
Mostly because:
A) Insurance companies collude with each other
B) are only half the problem (the other half being hospitals and pharmaceutical companies cranking prices up)
C) Most Americans get their insurance through their employer
and
D) Healthcare costs are complicated because they’re split between insurance premiums and out of pocket expenses and typically raising one lowers the other and vice versa
Insurance was always a terrible way to handle healthcare expenses because healthcare costs are generally non-discretionary and have far too many moving parts and payers.
Those are all caused by them not needing to compete. Throw a few execs in jail for collusion to defraud their clients (the employers), and the other issues all go away.
Only the first one can be fixed by competition, the rest aren’t impacted by that at all. There are too many moving parts for it all to magically go away by just saying “make them compete”. For instance what happens when insurance companies compete to offer the best deals on group rates to employers but then charge exorbitant premiums to employees? Or what if insurance premiums all magically came down but pharmaceutical prices kept skyrocketing?
Medical costs are an inelastic demand as well as a non-discretionary expense. That’s an absolutely terrible combination which means they’re almost entirely isolated from market forces.
Consider for instance a situation I find myself in. I need a certain medication for a permanent medical condition. Fortunately there are multiple medications available (often due to patents there’s only a single option). Unfortunately I’m allergic to all but one of them. That means it doesn’t matter if the pharmaceutical company is charging $5 or $5000 I’m paying for it. I literally have no choice. Whether my insurance pays for 100% of that or 0% doesn’t change what the pharmaceutical company is charging. Further for insurance I was offered a choice of about 5 different plans through my employer (which is a lot by most standards, often employers only offer one or two plans). My insurance is by all metrics terrible, I pay thousands of dollars every year in deductibles, but once I hit those deductibles it covers everything at 90% which with my medical expenses save me tens of thousands of dollars a year. There are cheaper plans of course, but then the tradeoff is that I’m restricted to a tiny handful of doctors who are all terrible and every single medical decision has to be pre-approved by the insurance company or they don’t cover it and I’d rather pay the extra thousand dollars a year to keep those decisions between me and my doctors.
The US medical system is a hydra and fixing any one part doesn’t actually solve anything. The entire system needs to be overhauled top to bottom. Switching to a single payer system is just the first step in that process but it’s a necessary one because otherwise the problem is intractable. It’s likely the patent system is going to need to be overhauled at least with regards to medications before it’s fixed as well.
Cause then those companies would have less to kickback to their government cronies
This was my first guess also. “Legalized Lobbying”
The Republicans know the free market is a myth and the only way to win in a capitalist system is to start rich and cheat. This involves convincing the plebs to believe in a free market.
The simple answer is that they would make less money if they did that, so it’s very important to convince the American public that it isn’t necessary and we should vote for people who will not enact it.
There’s been a weird trend of negative/mentally defeated comments lately in these political posts on Lemmy for a EU, Canada and US. Anyone else catching this? I get it that it sucks right now but this isn’t healthy for anyone and it’s a bad position for them and everyone else. I hope there isn’t spam/bots happening here.
It’s hard to be upbeat when Dems were leveraging the single piece of power left to them, saw fantastic special election results I would bet in part to that, and then flush it down the toilet for nothing.
People are going to die from this in the tens of thousands, what do you expect in terms of people’s reactions?!
I hope there isn’t spam/bots happening here.
The Trump administration declaring a war on judges followed by spam attacking all the useless judges for doing nothing to stop Trump? Sweeping victories for Democrats in local U.S. elections, followed by a sudden surge in doomerism mainstream media, and spam pushing a divisive and defeatist gatekeeping narrative for the “left”? (btw did you know you can’t really be left if you show any support for Democrats?)
Nah, more likely everyone has just accepted we’re all hopeless victims, and a vote for any progress is a vote for capitalism and genocide. We should all just give up and curl into a ball because we will never win against the unstoppable strongmen. Have you not noticed how strong they are? /s
