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I am in favor of single payor coverage paid for with a tax that would eliminate the need for anyone paying a health insurance premium. A plan in which everyone has to participate, young and old, rich and poor (adjusted for income). Just don't call it "Medicare" for all, because Medicare will screw you, for sure. Someone other than the Federal Govt. needs to be in charge, because the Federal Govt has demonstrated that they don't have the faintest idea how to run health care. Under the Fed Govt. they would be a monopoly and nobody could contest or appeal (pretty much the way it is now under Medicare and Medicaid). I have practiced medicine for over 30 years. I talk regularly with billing and coding specialists for a very large medical practice. Whenever I want to dispute a denial or clearly wrong decision by one of these Federal organizations the advice I get is, "Don't waste your time because they don't care." I am trying to dispute things that I believe would benefit my patients. There is no realistic avenue to question anything they do. They don't care. They don't have to, because they are the "Federal Government."
Medicare for all? If you know anything about Medicare you will realize that it was modeled after the 80/20 co-insurance plans of years gone by, before anyone acknowledged that preventative care was really the way to go. Until the last few years Medicare did not pay for any preventive exams for men at all, just like Blue Cross did years ago. Medicare was forced to pay for women's preventive exams by public pressure, but they only pay every two years (not yearly), and most private insurers are going to the every two year schedule for women over age 65, just like Medicare. They feel justified in following along because that is what the Federal plan does, so why should they have to do otherwise? I don't know why Thom & Bernie think Medicare is so great. Maybe because they are not women.
B72:
The population of Alberta is 4.1 million people. The population of the USA is 360 million people. Taiwan is the ONLY country in the world with a single payer system. The population of Taiwan is about 23 million people. It won't work in the USA
We'll see how many Democrats support the Sanders plan once he introduces it.
If Republicans "claim" they are about choice, I never heard that. I read between the lines as the speak and see that they are not.. The only true choice they ever made is serving the ultra - wealthy.
Yeah, Scoot, Ike pushed through the interstate highway system. He also warned against the "military industrial complex". He was the last decent Republican president and both the R and D parties have been engaged in a race to sell out the people of this country ever since. It's not clear who's ahead, but unless we get behind a viable third (and progressive) political party soon, we might as well just hand over our country to the likes of Donald Trump.
Paying taxes is patriotic and helps maintain a modern and civilized country to be proud of and worth fighting for and living in.
In my opinion, if you do not want to or pay a fair share of taxes, you should move to another country.
Republicans only care about the market not the people. Nothing they do ever benefits the people. So, why do they keep getting elected? Can anybody give me an example of something the Repu licans have ever voted on or proposed that has been for the benefit of the people?
Having lived in Alberta (Canada) and using single-payer health insurance for all, I can think of no better solution to the high costs of health care and the limited access all Americans have. Besides the cost savings (pay no premiums to insurance companies...only taxes amounting to about half those premiums), there is a moral...we ought to take of each other...because of our common humanity. You can call it "Christian".
Of course Republicans want Americans to have choices...as long as all the choices are ones they approve of.
Of course, of course Medicare for all. Obama's big mistake was not pressing for this first time around, he acquiesced to Joe Lieberman and other traitors to protect the insurance industry rather than the patient.
I've still got Bernie's sticker on the back of my car. I'm campaigning for him every day.
You said it for me, thanks!
Fillibuster!!
Who cares if the Dems filibuster, thanks to Crazy Uncle Joe and Harry Reid, Neil Gorsuch will become a justice on the SCOTUS.
I think the Supreme Court is fine just the way it is. Balanced. If you're going to add judges, then add two. One from each side. Neither side should have the power to unbalance the court just because their party is in power. The luck of the draw should not be the law of the land.
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THE CIRCUS’S RING-MASTERS - {a rhyme and a coda}
It’s not a wholesome circus: -
- Trumpsters are clowns who jerk us
around so we don’t see
the Kochs on their greedy spree,
while the Elephant stumbles
and our nation tumbles.
… Coda:
With Kochs as ring-masters
we face yuuge disasters.
==========================
ka,
Your words are wise and from the heart. I wish you many, many more breaths of life!
I wrote that for my mom who imparted her life-long love of the mountains to me as a child. Her death was made easier with hospice care provided by Medicaid.
The volcano is Mount Hood in Oregon.
-- Ryan
Gorsuch is a low-life weasel and corporate stooge funded by a billionaire bastard from the get-go, who ruled in favor of soulless, monster corporations against little people in nearly all of his cases. Good god, look at his real record, not the glossed over crap presented on corporate media!
Filibuster; filibuster; filibuster! Fight back; fight back; fight back -- on all fronts without let up!
Sure, in the short term, with these greed-mongering pricks currently in power, it is inevitable that the People will lose some battles, even big ones, but if we hang tough, we will win the war in the long run. Think how bad it got for the patriots during the Revolutionary War before they were finally able to throw off the yoke of tyranny.
Bernie Sanders, the most popular politician in America, is trying to light the way for the Democratic Party, away from corporate power and back to people power.
Re-frame the issues instead of playing into the Republican framework. Be a proud liberal! Don't let the fringe, corporate right define what it means to be progressive. Keep it simple and direct by constantly harping on the things that matter the most, with which most of the electorate agrees:
Get money out of politics; quit subsidizing millionaires and billionaires, and make them pay their fair share in taxes; regulate Wall Street, so they can't steal all the nation's wealth; quit pouring money into the black hole of the Pentagon and endless warfare; strengthen Social Security by lifting the cap; work toward Medicare for all; raise the national minimum wage to a living wage; extend tuition-free education to include four years of college; get serious about global warming by cleaning up the environment and leading the world in renewable energy technologies, which would create millions upon millions of good-paying jobs that can't be offshored, many more than the outdated fossil fuel industries of last century can provide.
We are the wealthiest nation in history and have plenty of money to do this -- without over-burdening the middle class taxpayers, by simply keeping our priorities straight! Regulated capitalism balanced with non-monopolized free enterprise and intelligent socialism of the "commons" is the winning formula. That's what our Founders figured out, as well as every great, progressive politician since. That's what gave America a powerful middle class, the largest the world has ever seen throughout all of history. That's the formula the ruling elite is desperately afraid of!
From the perspective of the common person, unregulated, dog-eat-dog capitalism has been proven over and over to be a complete and utter failure, only enriching the few at the expense of the many. It ain't rocket science!
Hi Stopgap,
As an 'Independent' I agree that the Republicans were wrong to not vote up or down on Obama's nominee. I really wonder just how much difference there is between Garland and Gorsuch. Gorsuch didn't ask or instruct the Republicans as to what to do on the Garland vote. I carefully watched Gorsuch testify, and I was impressed by his demeanor, modesty, and forthrightness. I don't think it is fair to blame him for those who brought him. I also think he is principled even if I don't necessarily agree with him all of the time. He simply can't out of principle state how he will rule on future cases he might decide.
The Dems would be wise to make note of some principles, any principles, as they have abandoned all principle in approving of HRC who was on the Saudi payroll, prostituted the State Department, and awarded the Saudis 300 billion in arms sales now being used to kill innocent muslim Yemenis.
Sincerely,
i h watinsky
Fanatics on the religious right are constantly hurling the phrase "murdering babies" when referring to a woman's right to abortion. If they had their way and got rid of Roe v. Wade, they would gladly impose their extremist views on others in the worst possible way by prosecuting women and their doctors for murder with all the power of the state.
Hi Thom,
Regarding the discussion of DNC chair of Tom Perez versus Keith Ellison, I would like to inform you and all viewers that I contacted Keith Ellison's office twice to ask him to go on record of refusing to accept money from Saudi Arabia under any circumstances. I could not get a simple commitment to rule out this HRC style outrageous corruption. I wasn't able to contact Tom Perez, but he supported HRC did he not? There can be no room for any Saudi money in the Democratic party, period, full stop.
Why not consider Tulsi Gabbard for DNC chair? She had the guts to go to Syria and talk about ending years of stupid war in which HRC/Obama sided with Al Queda and Al Nusra...unforgivable and immoral. Not an apologist for the Assad regime, but if he had no legitimacy, his regime would have fallen long ago.
I would like to add that this is what is wrong is 'identity politics.' The meaning is that it was HRC's turn according to some because she has a 'vagina' and many people including you, who should know better, went along.....being on the Saudi payroll while runing a 'pay for play' State Deparment should disqualify anyone.
Why not look for genuine merit regardless of gender? That would have led to Tulsi Gabbard, a strong but pleasant person who is against war. Yes, she is a WOMAN also, but that is just a physical attribute. Tulsi Gabbard has MERIT, and it is high time to consider merit before identity politics. If we don't consider merit before gender or any identity, then we will miss women and people of merit, which is what we have been doing for quite some time.
Sincerely,
Irvin Watinsky
Gorsuch went on and on about the value of precedent in Supreme Court decisions. However, precedent doesn't seem to mean much to him when it comes to honoring precedent. If so, he would have declined the nomination to honor the precedent ignored by Republicans when they declined to acknowledge Obama's constitutional duty to nominate a candidate to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by Scalia's death. In this case, he seems down right happy to ignore precedent.
I don't believe a word Gorsuch did or didn't say. Can you imagine hiring anyone to fill a job position that gave you such vague and inconclusive answers?
We can only hope that the Dem's will filibuster. But, I'm not counting on it!
i don't want trump to get away with anything, but forcing McConnell to "blow up" the fillibuster will have the affect of making it clear that the man is only being confirmed using extreme measures on the part of the republicans.
As they have said about the ACA....paraphrased...: "the republicans will totally own this". And if he votes against their agenda, it will be no more than they deserve.
Obama's " Merrick Garland was right of center and they STILL turned him down! Now all of a sudden, with the new regime we have to vote in their guy RIGHT NOW!! Even though he is far right.. Don't the Democrats get more than one choice?? Maybe a human that stands on the middle of Justice? The Democrats lost a turn at nominating and deserve at least that!
Batshit crazy!
Kindly stop fighting
"All that lives is born to die. And so I say to you that nothing really matters."
(Jimmy Page / Robert Plant)
Why are Americans obsessed by semantic legalese type dances?
To me there is a huge difference between murdering someone and killing someone. To my knowledge, no one is prosecuted for murder, for performing an abortion. The decision not to prosecute is a legal one. A fetus may not be able to walk and talk, but if not aborted, in a few years it will be walking and talking, kill it then you will probably be prosecuted for murder. Will anyone be prosecuted for murder for killing a fetus, I doubt it.
I'm never going to change your mind, it's a political issue for you and the washed up lefties. But, I believe that deep in your heart, you know killing a fetus is wrong.