Republicans vs Democrats. Here we go again! Neither of these parties give a damn about Main Street. It's all about Wall Street. Does anyone here remember Obama's campaigning on single payer? Do you recall his promise to get all the big insurance and pharma executives around a big conference table with a live CNN feed and ask them why we couldn't fundamentally change our health care system? Well that lasted about 30 milliseconds after he was sworn in. Instead, he went behind closed doors and hammered out a deal by which they got 30 million NEW MANDATED CUSTOMERS. Sure, they bought off on getting rid of the pre-existing condition thing, but in exchange for herculean government subsidies (now erradicated by the Republicans, which is why they are folding their tent in state after state). So, to the extent that the government has been subsidizing the insurance industry, there has been a very modest move toward single payer, but it hasn't even come close. The problem is the insurance industry itself, and a bloated for-profit health care system in general that makes proctologists and hospital administrators and insurance executives wealthy at the expense of the middle class, either directly or through taxes to pay for their less fortunate brethern. The harsh reality is that this country is going to have to take away the lollipop of "for profit health care" in order to pull off single payer. Does anyone actually believe that the Democratic Party establishment is behind this any more than the Republicans? They are all slurping the corporate swill.

Anybody who votes for this pile of healthgarbage has the heart, mind, and conscience of a mosquito.

#3 - Your comment is irrefutable

#4 - Republicans are racists... they demontrate this quite clearly endlessly

Driven by pure unadulterated greed

Apparently, a Christain believers deadly sin

Consider quotations -

"Be it dynasty politics, nepotism, corruption, communalism, divisions in society or poverty, getting freedom from all this is what I mean by a Congress"

"In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit."

Republicans hate president Obama more than they love thre peoplewho voted them into office.If they do not wipe out Obamacare then Obama's legacy of providing good health care to millions of Americans will be part of the Obama story. They want to kill every good action Obama achieved so they can say that he did nothing worthwhile. They cannot imagine that Trumpcare will become their legacy if it becomes law. The Republicans in Congress behave as if they are a domestic terrorist organization hell bent on destroying America from the inside. Trump is dismantling the Department of State. There is almost no one there to answer the phones or greet foreign dignitaries. Trump fired all the Prosecuting Attorney, which is not unusual but he has failed to replace them not even nominating replacements. All Trump does is tweet and hang out with Russians. Sick. Sad.

in 2016, we managed to elect the worst republican congress and worst president in modern history. is it finally time for america to wake up and take it's country back?

https://fixithealthcare.com/watch-the-movie/

#49 since you mention comparing Nazis and the current administration in your post, keep calm, move to which ever way the wind blowing today.

Guess who: Political party: Republican (1987–99, 2009–11, 2012–present); Independent (2011–12); Democratic (until 1987, 2001–09); Reform (1999–2001).

Ou812, He/she/whatever, you conveniently picked one sentence from this Democratic Senator who is a doctor and very wealthy. Infact he (waiting for his vote) and all Republicans are supporting an extremely expensive healthcare That causes the USA to be the most expensive in the world (by a large percentage) and we are ranked extremely low in the industrial world for quality of healthcare. Why do you keep ignoring that fact? Also you ignored all of his other statements. Research it and come up with rebuttals. I am asking for your references and fact.

Senator Ben Cardin, Democrat MD, was asked if he would support a move toward single payer. Senator Cardin replied "I want to make sure we maintain quality. I don't want to put all our eggs in one basket."

http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/news/health/ph-cc-cardin-visits-carrol...

Citizens of countries like Canada and most European countries that have single-payer universal healthcare systems get at least 100 percent more value for their taxes than US citizens!

Bingo! I was waiting for that exact response from you, and, frankly, was a little surprised it didn't come sooner -- you're slipping, óinseach.

Proven again just now, all you and Hotdog do is deflect, obfuscate, lie, take out of context whatever you disagree with, and reword arguments to fit preconceived notions -- pounding square pegs into round holes, usually transparent Fux News and hate-radio talking points, created by billionaire-funded think tanks, debunked repeatedly, yet disseminated to low-or-wrong-information voters, such as yourself, who obviously don't see the need to expand research beyond the comfort zone of the right-wing bubble-sphere.

Of course, that's your role as a troll and why nobody here bothers to take you seriously or to engage you in constructive debate. That, and your over-used, grade-school-level taunts, which, by the way, is why some of us, tit-for-tat, have tried to show you, without success, how to spice up your knee-jerk insults a bit for the sake of adding some color and tongue-in-cheek humor to otherwise drab and predictable comments.

What is really sad, however, and should embarrass both you and Hotdog, as it would any normal human being, is that in your mind's eye you are so clever. Evidently, you can't put yourself in someone else's shoes and realize how most unclever you actually appear to others. Dime-a-dozen, right-wing trolls and their shallow, run-of-the-mill talking points are as common as day-old dog turds and full of the same substance. Booorrring! Scrape it off the shoe!

Have you ever been to a Holocaust museum or visited a concentration camp? It is hallowed ground that shocks one into silence. No other thought can enter the mind when face to face with the visual reality of unspeakable horror and the capacity of humans to take their proclivity for violence and cruelty to the extreme. The somber experience deeply scars your soul and fundamentally changes your perspective in so many unconscious ways. If you are not brought to tears, you are not fully human.

You see, that is the whole point of preserving the record -- to serve as a blunt reminder to future generations never to forget the underlying political causes that concluded with the "final solution" -- fanning the flames of fear and hatred toward ethnic minorities and different religions, scapegoating whole groups of people for society's ills with the sole purpose of consolidating wealth and power. That is Nazi Germany in one sentence.

Lest we forget, it is our duty as citizens of the world, no matter of which country, to point out -- shout out! -- the same seeds of cruelty and the same basic instincts and tactics employed by present-day, budding authoritarian politicians, of which Trump and his thugs have in spades. Whether or not one is personally capable of detecting the actual historic parallels to the time-tested, age-old methods employed by Nazis, those parallels should not be dismissed simply because of political expediency or overly generalized rules of thumb, such as social media's so-called "Godwin's law" adage.

As Hitler rose to power, he acted upon tendencies and implemented policies which were assuredly not unique to him alone; he just took them to the next level and, in his mind anyway, to the logical endgame. Ambitious, driven politicians lusting after extreme concentration of power (extreme concentration of wealth is merely a means to that end) need to know their boundaries, what is acceptable and civilized behavior, and what is not.

Otherwise, why preserve the record if we bury the truth? Not speaking out dishonors all who have suffered and died -- on all sides -- during the course of WWII, and all who have met similar fates in succeeding totalitarian regimes, right up to the world of widespread war, greed, and thirst for ultimate power, in which we find ourselves today. History does, indeed, repeat itself -- not the same outward circumstances, obviously, but certain traits all too common in human nature and embodied in certain individuals given similar circumstances.

Therein lies the rub. If you go back through the blog archives, or have actually listened to Thom speak over time, or have read any of his books, you soon realize that, in context, he is very sincere and does not use Nazi references frivolously, gratuitously, or to score cheap political points. For, he has also visited a concentration camp and therefore must pay tribute to the victims by speaking openly and honestly about real-life parallels. It is his duty to do so, as it is ours. I don't speak for anyone but myself; nevertheless, many others on these pages (not all of course -- we're human) seem to share similar sentiments and concerns and thus feel compelled to speak out in similar fashion, each in their own way.

I won't rehash my entire exchange with Hotdog in this thread, but if you take a huge step back, read between her/his lines in the context of this community's debate about the single-payer movement in America -- not Germany, Canada, etc., but the USA -- Ou812 tried too eagerly, almost desperately, to draw a line that does not exist between our efforts and the Nazis'. I waded through the links she/he provided, which do not exculpate her/his dishonorable and despicable act of drawing a false parallel and making a false equivalency case between there-and-then and here-and-now, in a futile attempt to lend a veneer of credibility to a specious argument.

The times are different, the people are different, the motivations are different, the circumstances are different, and, most importantly, the Medicare-for-all campaign by the People of America is completely different from the selective, nightmarish, so-called "national" Nazi healthcare system, which was based on a set of completely different principles and morals, or lack thereof! To connect that dot to the goal of our good citizens to make comprehensive healthcare available to all at a better price is to expose one's woeful ignorance and, worst, wretched pettiness.

Mein Gott, Frau, why does all this need to be explained!

If you can't see the world of difference between a cheap shot and a genuine parallel, then you have misunderstood the lesson of the Holocaust, you are not honoring the fallen, and you are engaging in the same hypocrisy you have falsely accused others of in your (#49) retort -- a classic example of projection.

Incidentally, Hotdog's rejoinders remain disingenuously (deliberately?) confused by the difference between a national insurance program for healthcare and actual, stick-a-thermometer-in-your-mouth healthcare by private and independent providers, when she/he continuously conflates the two.

Furthermore, it does neither of you credit to glibly conflate Medicare-for-all with the Affordable Care Act, which is essentially a giveaway of public monies to the private insurance industry -- an unnecessary, cumbersome, and misguided effort to blend private and public programs into a hybrid compromise, inherently prone to the exact problems and uneven outcomes about which you so loudly moan and whine, and which only sucks blood out of the system and adds hopeless layers of needless complication.

Even though, to its credit, the ACA did give 30 million more people access to healthcare -- no small achievement -- the Democrats should have went all the way, pushed Medicare-for-all from the get-go, and fought back against greedy corporate interests. We would be that much closer today to the most popular, intelligent, and moral solution. Get rid of the 800-pound, for-profit gorilla sitting in the living room, as most other Western democracies already have, and the biggest problems disappear.

Is there ever a perfect solution free of all problems? Hell no! This is planet Earth infested with exponentially multiplying human bacteria! The best we can hope for is "a more perfect union." Certainly, Medicare-for-all will engender far fewer difficulties for far more people than the overly-complex, profitized, bastardized, (un)free-market jungle with sky-rocketing costs that are threatening our economy and ruining people's lives, especially if (mostly) Republican politicians beholding to the insurance monopolies get their way.

Too much to absorb out here in the real world? Go back to Fux News and the black and white fantasy land. It's much simpler and easier ...and boring.

https://fixithealthcare.com/watch-the-movie/