Red state voters support progressive policies

[BangersAndSmash]

Dems- Well except for you, middle class. You get jack shit but we'll make sure unemployed and non citizens get all the same shit as you, that you have to work for.

What is it that you want for the middle class?

Yes, adding expanding healthcare coverage rose the price of some health-care plans because of the way the private (read: for profit) health-care system is run. Remember a few things, health care premiums were increasing every year with or without ACA, and your old healthcare plan provided the insurance company a lot of leeway to kick you off the plan / limit your coverage if you suddenly required some costly treatment. If you want to look at the real culprit, read a hospital bill and see that an aspirin is 400$ and from my own experience and anecdotal evidence, ER visits tend to cost anywhere from 15k-40k depending on how many tests you have and that's only when you don't have an extended stay. Of course that rate is a game between the hospital the insurance company that you aren't even allowed to play if you don't have insurance.

Just think about this:
1) Are the insurance companies profitable:
Answer: Yes, no question. Highly so.
2)Do the insurance companies like profits?
Answer: Of course. They value profits above everything else.
3)How do the insurance companies make profit?
Answer: They make it off insurance premiums that they charge their "customers".

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/05/top...it-surge-29-percent-to-6-billion-dollars.html

 

[Diamond Jim]

Here in Colorado we have had the evil weed for a bit but still had to kickout the R and elected a gay man. Baby steps. And we are bordered by NM were a gay woman mma fighter won a house seat. And,oh my, look at kansass.

 

[trac209]

Im talking about progressive policies not identity politics lol.

Who cares what ethnicity or gender they are.

Aren’t the two intertwined? Lol

 

[Seano]

What is it that you want for the middle class?

Yes, adding expanding healthcare coverage rose the price of some health-care plans because of the way the private (read: for profit) health-care system is run. Remember a few things, health care premiums were increasing every year with or without ACA, and your old healthcare plan provided the insurance company a lot of leeway to kick you off the plan / limit your coverage if you suddenly required some costly treatment. If you want to look at the real culprit, read a hospital bill and see that an aspirin is 400$ and from my own experience and anecdotal evidence, ER visits tend to cost anywhere from 15k-40k depending on how many tests you have and that's only when you don't have an extended stay. Of course that rate is a game between the hospital the insurance company that you aren't even allowed to play if you don't have insurance.

Just think about this:
1) Are the insurance companies profitable:
Answer: Yes, no question. Highly so.
2)Do the insurance companies like profits?
Answer: Of course. They value profits above everything else.
3)How do the insurance companies make profit?
Answer: They make it off insurance premiums that they charge their "customers".

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/05/top...it-surge-29-percent-to-6-billion-dollars.html

When others get things, I want them too. Where is my incentive as a middle class worker?

For example, lets say minimum wage is 12 bucks and hour and you propose raising it to 15. Does everyone else get a 3 dollar an hour raise? Or do I suddenly make a few dollars more an hour than a Burger flipper? Again, you're just taking away my incentive as a working stiff.

edit- and where does the money come from? Where do those burger flippers go when automation takes over? Where do a bunch of lazy people with 0 incentive to learn a trade go?

And the health care, sorry I don't think its fair that I (and especially my employer) am on the hook to pay for what I get, which is no better than what others get for free. Again, this is robbing me of my incentive. It means nothing to go to work and earn something. Why bother?

 

[curryjunkie]

That could probably help a presidential candidate to a decent degree, but it wasn't enough for Gillum in Florida. Gillum campaigned on the issues and basically left out the identity politics, but it didn't matter in the end. DeSantis didn't outline any platforms, he just attached himself to Trump who called Gillum a socialist thief.

also it was.................. florida....

 

[AndroidRage]

No surprise really. I’m all for things like weed legalization, prison reform, UHC and, in sensible times, the trade war would have been seen as a progressive issue as well (kind of a mixed bag at this point). My issue is I just can’t stand the democrats. They’re all in on this notion of a 100 year ruling coalition based on demographics alone - re. Identity politics.

I also believe those priority point above have to be implemented very carefully with absolute sobriety. Many conservative objections are valid and need to be wrestled with in good faith. Democrats have no interest in that. It’s just hysterical moralism with no regard for unintended consequences. After all, why deal with the tough management questions when you can just scream “literally hitler!”

Why not vote for those who want to implement those policies and then once they are in place you can vote them out? If you vote for the policies then will get implemented or at least supported more widely.

 

[BangersAndSmash]

For example, lets say minimum wage is 12 bucks and hour and you propose raising it to 15. Does everyone else get a 3 dollar an hour raise? Or do I suddenly make a few dollars more an hour than a Burger flipper? Again, you're just taking away my incentive as a working stiff.

It's up to the business owner whether they increase your pay or not. I've worked at companies that had employees whose pay rose because of minimum wage increases. Everyone else's pay rose by the same level to prevent morale from going down the toilet, but it's ultimately up to the business owner.

edit- and where does the money come from? Where do those burger flippers go when automation takes over? Where do a bunch of lazy people with 0 incentive to learn a trade go?

Where does what money come from? The increased wages need to be paid by the employers. Big corporations can pay this money easily. McDonalds could pay the wage increase for their employees by charging .68c more for big macs. Small business might have more difficulty paying these wages initially, that's why many minimum wage plans have a tiered design for small business that will allow them gradually increase their wages over five years to meet the new standards. The increase to the general economy over five years should allow those employers to raise their wages to that level.

Automation will kill off a lot of jobs. Neither political party is going to stop that, mostly because neither political party really can, but they can develop a plan for it. As for people who don't want to work or learn or a trade, I don't know where they go. Same place they always go I guess, on the street / in their trailer / in their shitty gov. housing. The number of those people can be lowered by education which is why it's so important.

And the health care, sorry I don't think its fair that I (and especially my employer) am on the hook to pay for what I get, which is no better than what others get for free. Again, this is robbing me of my incentive. It means nothing to go to work and earn something. Why bother?

You're right, I don't think it's fair to only put some people and employers on the hook for health insurance, that's the point of medicare for all. If everyone pays into it the costs go down and coverage goes up. The fact that it's tied to employers at all is a ridicolous relic from fifty years ago. Even if you took away the ACA, you were still paying for uninsured emergency room visits which is one reason why your premium kept increasing, so if you understand that you were always subsidizing health-care costs already, why not do so in a more efficient and planned out manner?

It means nothing to go to work and earn something. Why bother?

Employees are more productive than they've ever been in any time in history, and yet the companies have lobbied the government for years and years to create laws that allow them to horde their profits at the top and they've largely gotten away with it. The democratic platform looks to restore rights to the workers, and although not every democrat has been great in that area and they've struggled to achieve legislation on many issues, they are on the workers side where the GOP is strictly on the side of big profits.

It may seem that your money is going to lower class people, but the reality is that big business receives more corporate well-fare and incentives than anyone else (just making sure they pay their fair share would pay for most of these things alone). They hoard 3/4 of the pie and do their best to keep everyone else fighting over the remaining 1/4.

 

[Gunny]

Why not vote for those who want to implement those policies and then once they are in place you can vote them out? If you vote for the policies then will get implemented or at least supported more widely.

So take UHC for example. I’ve told the story in the past that my old home state of Vermont tried to do single payer. They even signed it into law giving themselves several years to figure out how they would pay for the plan. Well from day one it was an obvious disaster in the making that would have absolutely demolished the state’s economy.

It should have been obvious to the democrat legislators, of whom my own sister was one, that you can’t have that kind of social welfare program unless you can control your borders and industries lest non-contributing recipients flood in and employers (who were going to shoulder the burden) flood out. I tried to talk to my sister about this early in the process and she became hysterical - accusing me of all sorts of ill-intent (pretty much exactly like national democrats do when speaking about those who oppose them). The thing is, the act of passing single payer just felt to good, too important, too ego gratifying for them to be bothered with the realities at play.

Well in the eleventh hour when it was about to hit the fan, Vermont democrats woke up and shit canned their own plan. Not before wasting many millions of the state’s limited revenue in trying to figure out what any pragmatist could have, and did, tell them years earlier.

Point is, there are huge potential consequences to this shit being done wrong and the democrats, in their present form, are all sorts of wrong.

 

[Islam Imamate]

So take UHC for example. I’ve told the story in the past that my old home state of Vermont tried to do single payer. They even signed it into law giving themselves several years to figure out how they would pay for the plan. Well from day one it was an obvious disaster in the making that would have absolutely demolished the state’s economy.

It should have been obvious to the democrat legislators, of whom my own sister was one, that you can’t have that kind of social welfare program unless you can control your borders and industries lest non-contributing recipients flood in and employers (who were going to shoulder the burden) flood out. I tried to talk to my sister about this early in the process and she became hysterical - accusing me of all sorts of ill-intent (pretty much exactly like national democrats do when speaking about those who oppose them). The thing is, the act of passing single payer just felt to good, too important, too ego gratifying for them to be bothered with the realities at play.

Well in the eleventh hour when it was about to hit the fan, Vermont democrats woke up and shit canned their own plan. Not before wasting many millions of the state’s limited revenue in trying to figure out what any pragmatist could have, and did, tell them years earlier.

Point is, there are huge potential consequences to this shit being done wrong and the democrats, in their present form, are all sorts of wrong.

That's much harder to do at the state level than at the national level though so if implemented nationally that does mitigate that concern to an extent. Not entirely to be fair since since of course businesses can move out of America and people into it but that flow is much more easily controlled. Its one thing to move to a different state, another to move into a different country.

 

[BangersAndSmash]

So take UHC for example. I’ve told the story in the past that my old home state of Vermont tried to do single payer. They even signed it into law giving themselves several years to figure out how they would pay for the plan. Well from day one it was an obvious disaster in the making that would have absolutely demolished the state’s economy.

It should have been obvious to the democrat legislators, of whom my own sister was one, that you can’t have that kind of social welfare program unless you can control your borders and industries lest non-contributing recipients flood in and employers (who were going to shoulder the burden) flood out. I tried to talk to my sister about this early in the process and she became hysterical - accusing me of all sorts of ill-intent (pretty much exactly like national democrats do when speaking about those who oppose them). The thing is, the act of passing single payer just felt to good, too important, too ego gratifying for them to be bothered with the realities at play.

Well in the eleventh hour when it was about to hit the fan, Vermont democrats woke up and shit canned their own plan. Not before wasting many millions of the state’s limited revenue in trying to figure out what any pragmatist could have, and did, tell them years earlier.

Point is, there are huge potential consequences to this shit being done wrong and the democrats, in their present form, are all sorts of wrong.

The country has successfully met plenty of challenges in its history, one of which was developing a program to pull ourselves out of the great depression.

I think the country has a whole would have a better chance of reforming the health-care system than a lone state (let alone the state with smallest GDP in the country). Not that there wouldn't be challenges, mind you.

 

[ChillBroBaggins]

It may seem that your money is going to lower class people, but the reality is that big business receives more corporate well-fare and incentives than anyone else (just making sure they pay their fair share would pay for most of these things alone). They hoard 3/4 of the pie and do their best to keep everyone else fighting over the remaining 1/4.

Agreed on your whole post. Another point I'd add about corporate welfare (which is imo inexcusable), is not only are they generally using tax loopholes and their general shenanigans. I don't have the figures but an increasing number of our "middle class" require food stamps or other subsidies just to survive, the reasoning of course being the failure of wages to keep of with living costs. By providing subsidies (to otherwise underpaid workers), the government is making up the difference for the company to continue to pay low wages. The worst offenders would be companies like Walmart and Amazon, who are hardly having trouble maintaining their profit margins. They even help workers apply for government subsidies, it's insane the state our working class has fallen into in favor of deregulation and corporatism.

 

[BangersAndSmash]

That's much harder to do at the state level than at the national level though so if implemented nationally that does mitigate that concern to an extent. Not entirely to be fair since since of course businesses can move out of America and people into it but that flow is much more easily controlled. Its one thing to move to a different state, another to move into a different country.

Exactly, a 32.2 $B stick vs. a 19.26$T stick to bitch-slap the insurance companies with.

 

[superpunch]

So take UHC for example. I’ve told the story in the past that my old home state of Vermont tried to do single payer. They even signed it into law giving themselves several years to figure out how they would pay for the plan. Well from day one it was an obvious disaster in the making that would have absolutely demolished the state’s economy.

It should have been obvious to the democrat legislators, of whom my own sister was one, that you can’t have that kind of social welfare program unless you can control your borders and industries lest non-contributing recipients flood in and employers (who were going to shoulder the burden) flood out. I tried to talk to my sister about this early in the process and she became hysterical - accusing me of all sorts of ill-intent (pretty much exactly like national democrats do when speaking about those who oppose them). The thing is, the act of passing single payer just felt to good, too important, too ego gratifying for them to be bothered with the realities at play.

Well in the eleventh hour when it was about to hit the fan, Vermont democrats woke up and shit canned their own plan. Not before wasting many millions of the state’s limited revenue in trying to figure out what any pragmatist could have, and did, tell them years earlier.

Point is, there are huge potential consequences to this shit being done wrong and the democrats, in their present form, are all sorts of wrong.

So here's where I look at the numbers. The US already spends more government money on healthcare per citizen than any single payer country in the world except for Norway.

It's not a population thing; Japan has 130 million people. It's not a population density thing; Canada has a lower population density. There's absolutely nothing unique about America that would make a single payer system impossible.

Single payer healthcare would lower government healthcare spending and lower taxes.

 

[BangersAndSmash]

Agreed on your whole post. Another point I'd add about corporate welfare (which is imo inexcusable), is not only are they generally using tax loopholes and their general shenanigans. I don't have the figures but an increasing number of our "middle class" require food stamps or other subsidies just to survive, the reasoning of course being the failure of wages to keep of with living costs. By providing subsidies (to otherwise underpaid workers), the government is making up the difference for the company to continue to pay low wages. The worst offenders would be companies like Walmart and Amazon, who are hardly having trouble maintaining their profit margins. They even help workers apply for government subsidies, it's insane the state our working class has fallen into in favor of deregulation and corporatism.

Yeah, that was the point of the stop Beezos bill which succeeded in having him raise the minimum wage of amazon employees to 15$ an hour. It was a threat to tax Amazon for every $ their employees took out of government assistance.

 

[ChillBroBaggins]

Yeah, that was the point of the stop Beezos bill which succeeded in having him raise the minimum wage of amazon employees to 15$ an hour. It was a threat to tax Amazon for every $ their employees took out of government assistance.

True and yet I think the greater point to be highlighted: these are the kinds of systematic problems when the minimum wage fails to keep up with a living wage. Or more generally, siphoning wealth off of the working class for short term profit margins.

 

[...El Ray]

I would like to think everyone supports some policies of the other 'team'. It would seem extremely intellectually lazy if they only supported policies proposed by those of their own political affiliation.

 

[Gunny]

That's much harder to do at the state level than at the national level though so if implemented nationally that does mitigate that concern to an extent. Not entirely to be fair since since of course businesses can move out of America and people into it but that flow is much more easily controlled. Its one thing to move to a different state, another to move into a different country.

On a national level, potentially yes. Which is why I ultimately support UHC. But if the legislators are motivated by moralistic grand standing or ego gratification - which for better or worse is how I perceive the democrats - or if they’re preoccupied with all sorts of other identity based silliness, I absolutely wouldn’t not trust them to take on this challenge. There are all sorts of other things that could go wrong with this kind of program and I have little faith that today’s democrats could possibly avoid those traps. TBH, I would rather wait until National consensus forces the republicans to get onboard and then do this in a bipartisan fashion - and I’m increasingly encouraged that this will eventually happen.

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

MAkes sense, right wing policy is widely unpopular

 

[Gunny]

So here's where I look at the numbers. The US already spends more government money on healthcare per citizen than any single payer country in the world except for Norway.

It's not a population thing; Japan has 130 million people. It's not a population density thing; Canada has a lower population density. There's absolutely nothing unique about America that would make a single payer system impossible.

Single payer healthcare would lower government healthcare spending and lower taxes.

I don’t disagree with this on a national level. As I said, i’m a proponent of UHC. But it has to be done with absolute sobriety and you absolutely MUST get serious about your borders.

 

[Islam Imamate]

On a national level, potentially yes. Which is why I ultimately support UHC. But if the legislators are motivated by moralistic grand standing or ego gratification - which for better or worse is how I perceive the democrats - or if they’re preoccupied with all sorts of other identity based silliness, I absolutely wouldn’t not trust them to take on this challenge. There are all sorts of other things that could go wrong with this kind of program and I have little faith that today’s democrats could possibly avoid those traps. TBH, I would rather wait until National consensus forces the republicans to get onboard and then do this in a bipartisan fashion - and I’m increasingly encouraged that this will eventually happen.

Expect the moralistic grandstanding and identity based silliness you accuse the Dem of having from preventing the GOP from doing that in the near future. They call it socialist and criticize it for covering too many brown people and a chunk of their base would eat it up. Its more likely the Dems get it through if they get control of both House and Senate.