I think I have a nose bleed!
The more I know the less I know! :hide-1:
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I think I have a nose bleed!
The more I know the less I know! :hide-1:
I told you a few years ago I read an entire wikipedia on British Parliament and devolved powers to Scottish Parliament etc. It's gone. Now I can impress other yanks because I know what MP stands for.
So take-aways: 1. President and Congress elected separately. 2. Congress= House of representatives and Senate. 3. Senate has 100 senators (2 for each state) and House 435 (proportioned to population of each state).
Actually one more function of our system that is quirky is that a lot of important social issues are decided by our Supreme Court. We have 9 Justices, they are appointed by the President when there is a vacancy and they serve for life. This ends up being kind of a morbid thing bc people know who Justices were appointed by and how old they are.
And that would exceed my knowledge of the mechanics of British Parliament. But I like watching PM questions so I can see who's more popular with his backbench:)
Anecdotes can be helpful to illustrate an issue though I always assume when I hear something about our healthcare system it's a worst case scenario. Let me share a moderate case scenario that proves we're barely a civilized country.
I have health insurance through my employer. I chose a good health insurer when I picked my plan. Recently I was playing tennis and destroyed my calf. Everyone I was playing with said they knew the injury, that it was a tear of the main muscle in the calf and of the plantaris, that it doesn't need surgery but is very painful and keeps you off your feet for four weeks and eight weeks to fully heal.
I went to a doc, who expressed the same suspicion but said in such an injury it's helpful to get an mri to rule out an achilles tear, which he said is perhaps 1% possibility, probably less since I could kind of hobble.
I don't have an Achilles tear but today I got a bill in the mail that says my insurance covered 3,200 dollars of it and that I owe exactly 1,736.43 dollars.
If I knew I would get stuck with a bill for nearly two thousand dollars I would have said I'm fine, I'm almost positive it's not an Achilles tear. What's more, the doctor wanted to order a second MRI to prove it healed properly!
First of all, there are people in this country who are not insured. Small employers don't have to provide insurance, and people who are unemployed are supposed to pay a $500 dollar a month premiums for bad insurance.
Anyhow, the good news is I got to tell people about my stupid leg, my tennis game, and also complain about our healthcare system. Brits, Aussies, is this the sort of bill you guys get stuck with?
Anyhow, this is part of the reason I think healthcare has to be a major priority.
There is no bill. You would probably go to hospital, have an x-ray and a diagnosis, maybe some pills but as you say it is not a major injury. As a mature adult you pay a National Insurance contribution with every pay check, ie once a month in normal circumstances. This entitles you to free medical treatment at the time of need. If you are prescribed pills then you will have to pay for the medicine, a base fee of £9 (about $11.83) so that would be the total cost of the treatment, though I doubt you need a pill for an Achilles tendon injury. Because of my age I get my medicines free of charge (and I am currently on three different types of pill per day)Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
It's a little complicated in Australia, but still way better in most respects than the USA. Treatment in a public hospital is free, but there are long waiting lists for surgery classified as non-critical. Private doctors' bills are reimbursed up to a scheduled fee that the government decides is reasonable, although many doctors charge more than than this. Medical drugs are also heavily subsidised. Some things are not generally covered by the government - eg dental and optical. Many people have private insurance to cover these extra costs, but even with this there can still be significant out-of-pocket costs.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
Fortunately, I've been pretty healthy so the details of medical coverage have not been much of an issue for me. However, I am heading into that grey area where I'm old enough to start developing more medical problems but not old enough to qualify for the benefits available to seniors. Recently I was a diagnosed with condition that will require surgery to fix, but because it's non-critical the only way I could get it done anytime soon is in a private hospital. I don't have private insurance, so that would cost around AU$10,000 (US$7,000).
Unless you live in Wales or Scotland, where prescriptions are 'free'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Sorry to hear you're going to be out of pocket so much for this surgery. The health insurance I have would cost someone out of pocket 500 a month (or 6000 a year) if they were unemployed or worked for a small employer who wasn't required to provide health insurance. So, someone paying 6,000 a year for insurance might get the bill I got.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
I have to say I pay only about 25 dollars out of pocket for two prescriptions per month which is not terrible. Even with insurance we're out of pocket for so many things and insurance companies try to find ways to weasel out of paying. I get a surprise bill like this once every three or four years.
I also have a close friend who was transported to the hospital with uncontrollable seizures (he had poorly controlled type I diabetes) and left with a bill so large he declared bankruptcy in his twenties.
That's a pretty good deal. I'm sure a lot of people here get dinged for hundreds a month on prescriptions. Anything that still has a patent is very expensive and insurance companies will often either not cover it or bury you in paperwork proving the drug is a necessity and you've tried every alternative.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jericho
Private insurance would have cost me at least A$1500 per year and not covered all costs, so I figure I'm well ahead with all the money I've saved by not having it. It's a calculated gamble on staying healthy and being able to use the public system if something goes wrong. The most important thing is that I know I'm not going to be ruined financially if I'm struck by a severe medical condition.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan;190e the 9884
Being under Labour control (currently), free prescription is one of the few useful things the Senedd (welsh parliament) has done (though I still think it's a house of snakes built to divide and conquer)!
Bye Bye, Bernie, bye bye. One can only hope so.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...n-donald-trump
I think Bernie deserves credit for taking useful ideas that were once considered too radical for mainstream American politics and helping to popularize them. He has been at the forefront when it comes to discussing economic inequality, deficiencies in our health care system, and the need for more accessible higher education. These are things you see throughout many developed countries and the U.S. has lagged behind other countries when it comes to caring for our poor and sick, and enabling economic mobility with a progressive tax system and accessible education.
However, I think his movement has faltered because of his egotism. He seems to have disdain for many other Democrats, some who maybe deserve it, and others who would be amenable to his ideas. He is also, as the article Stavros linked, not great when it comes to social issues because they don't fit within his paradigm for understanding social problems. Bernie has made very obtuse statements about civil rights, and he seems to think class and economic status are primary causes of all social problems. We've had slavery within this country, and yes one can think of it in economic terms, but there is so much more there. There is so much more to bigotry, whether it's homophobia, Islamophobia, anti-black racism, xenophobia, transphobia and sexism than an economic relation.
My favorite candidate is still probably Elizabeth Warren. Notwithstanding her backsliding on some of her commitments she has proposed a lot of aggressive reforms to increase corporate accountability and to make our tax system more fair. I do think she is not especially charismatic and I don't think I'm saying that because I've pigeonholed women in some way. That's just always been my impression.
Anyhow, I think it's likely we end up with Joe Biden as our candidate. He would be a big improvement from Trump, but he doesn't offer anything exciting.
Apparently Micheal Bloomberg is going to run an anti-gun commercial during the Super Bowl tomorrow night. Talk about not knowing your audience.
Between that, Elizabeth Warren talking about having a high school student interview candidates for the Secretary of Education, and the anti-MTA and police rallies here in NYC, its almost like some liberals want 4 more years of Trump.
I assume he's running those ads because it's the biggest audience, and they're not all gun nuts. Do you suggest he only run ads to people who already support gun controls? Incidentally, why do you insist on referring to pro-gun control policies as anti-gun - essentially echoing the gun lobby's rhetoric?Quote:
Originally Posted by blackchubby38
Are you even a Democrat supporter? You seem to be focused mainly on criticising them rather than the other side, often using the other side's talking points - eg "anti-gun", "far left". Your idea of a winning strategy seems to be that Democrats should be as inoffensive as possible and avoid taking a firm position on anything that would not go down well in Trumpland. What do you actually believe in?
I have voted Democrat in every election since 1992. I'm moderate who leans left on certain issues. I have also made my feelings clear about being pro-gun control in the past. The reason why I'm criticizing them is because some of them don't seem to have learn anything from 2016.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
I'm a realist who realizes that if that Democrats are going win in November, they're going to have win back some of the voters they lost in 2016. Its not about being inoffensive, its about knowing which issues you can win on with those voters and which ones that you're not. Gun control isn't one of them.
In other ones, yes only run ads to people who already support gun control. The Democrats have already won on that issue with their base and independents who support it.
Okay, but if now is not the right time to mention gun control, when will be the right time? If it's too risky to raise now, won't it also be too risky at any point in the future, as there's always another election coming? Your argument sounds like a recipe for perpetual inaction. Supposing Democrats won the Presidency and both houses after running quiet on gun control. Wouldn't you then be telling us that they shouldn't try to legislate because there would be too much risk of a backlash?
Also, what are you suggesting to win back the voters who switched to Trump? Presumably they voted for him because they weren't happy with the status quo; in particular, because they were being left behind economically. That suggests that the Democrats need to run on something more than just not being Trump, that they need policies to spread the gains more evenly.
I appreciate your posts but have sometimes had the same question. You often show you're a reasonable person, which is good and important, but then I wonder what in the Democratic program is indispensable to you. At what point would a concession by Democrats to win votes change the character of the party so much that we're giving up the things we're fighting for? I ask myself the same question because the Democratic party winning is so important to me but I want to know what we win.Quote:
Originally Posted by blackchubby38
I also think the issues Democrats run on need to be calibrated so that we're creating an impact but also pulling away the right slice of the voters to win elections. If you don't mind me asking, who do you like so far? If it's Biden I will agree that what he offers is significantly different from what Trump offers, even if it isn't bold or inspiring.
I agree with this mostly. The reason the center sometimes seems appealing is that I think to myself, aren't there a lot of people who would want assurance that we don't implement a racist immigration policy, that we don't have a dangerous and volatile foreign policy, and that we don't appoint Justices who roll back women's and lgbt rights, even without more? But voter turnout matters as well and there are people who will not vote for the Democratic party if they're not offered better social safety net or a more inspiring program that goes further than the Obama years and does more than undo damage inflicted by Trump.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
I suppose the question is whether what Bernie offers is what the people need and want. He proposes far-reaching taxes on wealth, medicare for all, free college tuition, national rent control, breaking up big banks, and more. Yes, it's more inspiring than the status quo, but I wonder if there are some people concerned about whether he would in the long-run leave room for market forces (I believe in pervasive regulation but think it should leave room for businesses to operate; I'm not certain Bernie threatens that, but he doesn't exactly make clear what he thinks the role of the state is in regulating business). Does Bernie limit himself to what is politically attainable?
Here is another Bye Bye Bernie article, one from Martin O'Malley who points to Sanders' record as a 'do nothing' Independent, plus-
“Here’s a guy who has been a kind of stalwart of the National Rifle Association, a man who said immigrants steal our jobs right up until he ran for president, a guy who said the sound of John Kennedy’s voice made him nauseous.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...martin-omalley
The Democrats need a candidate with a positive vision for the US over the next 10 years, someone who can persuade people that there is a better way to treat citizens and the environment, above all someone who offers a different tone to the constant trashing and negative copy of the incumbent, who should be running on his record rather than other peope's. Here is the problem: the US is sliding into recession, so that by November, the braying about job creation and economic success might be replaced by the blame game, with, one assumes, Obama the fall guy for anything that goes wrong.
This article looks at the negative trends in the US economy-
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-a9310056.html
Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
A woman's right to choose.
Making sure that everyone receives equal protection under the law when it comes to employment, education, and housing.
But I think the most important issue in this election is the make up of the Supreme Court. If Trump wins re-election, he most likely gets to nominate another judge. If that happens, everything the Democrats have fought for the past 50 years can be in jeopardy.
As of right now, I leaning towards Biden, followed by Buttigieg, and Klobuchar.
Nope. Because as Obama once said and as we are unfortunately learning right now, "Elections having consequences". When they have control over those three houses, then Democrats should have opportunity to enact gun control legislation.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
The problem is that you need to win more than one election to make changes stick. Look at what's happened with Obamacare - even if the other side is unable to repeal the legislation there are many ways to undermine it through legal challenges or administrative action/inaction.Quote:
Originally Posted by blackchubby38
I just don't see how being deceptive about your real intentions can be a viable political strategy in the long term. Voters tend to react badly if they feel they were deceived. I'm not even sure it works in the short term. Voters who care enough about guns to change their vote are unlikely to forget that Democrats favoured gun controls in the past - and the other side will certainly be reminding them. I also don't see how you can feed a different message to your own base without others knowing about it.
I could possibly understand your argument if Trump was just a one-off aberration and things will return to normal once he's gone. But I think he's really a product of deeper trends that have been building for some time. The Republican Party has been taken over completely by Trumpism and it's not going to go back to normal even if he loses this year.
The main things the President does that are permanent is appoint Justices and start wars. The types of things he's doing at our border also has permanent consequences. Other battles might take generations to win and might be forced through with a majority, but can be undone in the next legislative cycle. I agree with you about the guns though. Republican voters already know we want gun control and anything said directly to them is going to be better than having it filtered through the NRA as "THEY WANNA TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY!!!!".Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
The problem with Biden is that we have reached a stage in this country where people are prepared for more than the health care and tax plan he provides.Not a good thread to be too specific maybe but he could be much more progressive on this issue even without a wealth tax. I understand your point that if you don't offer anything excited and run simply on not being Trump you can't excite the masses. Not sure what the answer is...
Stavros, I agree that's the type of person we need. But who among the current field is it? The Iowa Caucus is today and it will be won by either Bernie or Joe!!
I was going to write something profound, but then I opened up the papers. I have no idea what happened in Iowa last night, I don't know who does, but it is one of those moments that makes me wonder what has happened to the US political system. Purges, Suppression, Gerrymandering....and at the dawn of the digital election, digitals that don't work? hmmmm….has this been a good night for Bloomberg?
Explanations, please, America.
It's a bit murky, but it looks like the usual story about senior officials buying a technical solution they didn't understand, the technology not being tested sufficiently, and people not being adequately trained in how to use it.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...lection-110710
https://fivethirtyeight.com/
The latest odds from 538 are in the upper right hand corner. I know they've been wrong a lot but so is everyone else and I think they try to do an honest, professional job so I look at their poll aggregation once in a while.
They have Bernie as the favorite. What's interesting is that the people (or personalities) seem to matter a lot because Bernie and Warren seem most similar policy wise but a lot of people in each camp don't seem to rate the other as second best from a poll I saw.
A few prominent Bernie Sanders supporters have said they will not vote for anyone but Bernie. One even said to paraphrase, if everyone knows that we will only vote for Bernie, and their primary motivation is to beat Trump, then the responsible move is for them to support Bernie in the primary. I'm not going to link the parties saying this on large platforms with lots of support but you get the idea. I'll support Bernie or whoever the Democratic nominee is.
There have also been a lot of conspiracy theories around the Iowa Caucus, but it looks exactly like what Filghy said. It is a state that is not demographically representative of the U.S. and the caucus format creates low turnout so it would be nice if it no longer goes first in primary season.
From what I have read, what stands out is not the candidates, but the process -specifically the technology, and how it seems to have failed to be an efficient means of counting votes. It raises questions to ask those -Dominic Cummings is one of them- who think that the future, the near future will be digital, that smart phones comms will shape every decision we make, to the extent that Parliaments could be abolished and voters 'phone in' their desires, their support or opposition to this policy and that. I don't think we are near that yet, and just as important, as Republicans flooded the count with bogus messages, how does one have an electronic election if the process is inefficient and open to abuse?
The other question, given that Iowa is so small, is how will the candidates do on 'Super Tuesday'? Warren looks and sounds like she knows she is losing ground, but to me Bloomberg is the unknown quantity, and may be the only credible alternative to Biden. But I am far away and don't get a lot of the daily buzz that creates the nuances that shape voters decisions.
It seems strange that the odds for Sanders and Biden have changed massively, presumably as a result of the Iowa outcome, but the odds for Buttigieg have hardly changed.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
Your comments about Sanders' supporters confirm my suspicion that it may be a bit of a personality cult, like Corbynism in the UK Labour Party.
I think the big concern for the Democrats from Iowa is not so much the technology failure, but the fact that turnout was low.
Trump wears more make up than Dolly Parton.
He has large breasts and wide, child bearing hips.
He is obviously a post operative transsexual.
what about this how about his sunday trip to the hospital....saying it was his yearly check up sure
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/wha...-iran-remarks/
I know you don't mean it maliciously and you are attacking Trump but I think we shouldn't use transsexual as an insult, even if you think the insult is to Trump's fragile masculinity.
I wanted to post a couple of clips of Joe Biden from youtube. It's for anyone who hasn't seen them because I hadn't seen all of them until last night. There is the clip of him calling someone fat, him calling a woman a dog-faced pony soldier, and the corn pop story short version (the long version is worse).
Now I've always like Joe's personality and thought he was quirky. His policies are not great but I have some faith in him to do his best and he would make this country far better than it is under Trump. And I know that in the dog-faced pony soldier clip he was trying to joke around, but he seems a bit off. Maybe he's lost his filter or maybe he's always just been prone to saying and doing some inappropriate things, but I didn't realize quite how bad it was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2RH7JhaMgY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbEJpr4A9mQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4NmtSrqtvI
I watched all three, and other than the reference to the Republican questioner in the second video as 'fat' I did not think Biden said anything wrong or scadalous, assuming the first remark about a pony was light-hearted, as I didn't really understand the reference, and in the third I did not understand anything he was saying anyway.
Rudolph Giuliani Jr is now embarking on the revenge mission to investigate/prosecute Hinter Biden, and by association Joe Biden, there is an interview with Fox News in which he puts on his serious face and reveals he has evidence of wrong-doing -stuff that has not been exposed before. It appears to be a re-run of the use of foreign sources and individuals to smear a political rival of the President in an election year, which is precisely what the Impeachment was all about, yet it seems Giuliani and his boss don't seem to care about that, I guess because he can only be impeached once.
Problem for Giuliani is that The Daily Beast reported last week or so that Giuliani is susceptible to bogus information, and not least because it comes from supporters of corrupt, disgraced politicians like Yuri Lutsenko and Victor Shokin, and the man who has so far been absent from the news, Dmitry Firtash. These were the very same corrupt officials that the US -along with the IMF and the EU- opposed because they were salting away money from the Treasury, some of which had arrived in the Ukraine as foreign aid. Giuliani is this relying for his information on the very people his own government sought to remove, whose word cannot be trusted, but is doing so to maintain the narrative that the Biden family was deep in the dirt in Ukraine, and also, Giuliani claims, in China.
I don't know how Hunter Biden got involved in these countries or if Dad arranged it, but Giuliani sounded to me like he libelled Hunter Biden in the Fox News interview, I doubt Biden will sue.
Who is paying Giuliani? But it's an old trick. If you are accused, investigate the accuser, then prosecute them, even if there is no case, just to tie them up in the courts, or like Weinstein, get them to sign a NDA and lob 100k their way. Whatever it is, it stinks.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/u-justice-...201520006.html
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-ne...ation?ref=wrap
To add to my post above, I think the problem Biden now has is that the Republicans have succeeded in making his son and Ukraine an issue that will not go away and is designed above all to distract attention away form domestic policy issues in the election. The Democrats have to decide if Biden is going to spend most of this year responding to questions about himself and his son -regardless of the facts- instead of debating the issues in the election. In addition if his poll ratings do not grow, it surely means he will resign from the contest, along with Elizabeth Warren who has failed to gain any momentum of the kind Pete Buttigieg has. It seems to me it will come down to Sanders or Bloomberg, and I suspect the latter, for surely the Democrats would not be stupid enough to nominate Sanders?
I agree with you Stavros about the absurd accusations and character assassination Republicans have engaged in with Biden. I only meant that in impromptu settings he can say puzzling things sometimes (I'm not sure anyone understood the reference because it was supposed to be a John Wayne quote but nobody could find it). Nothing there was disqualifying or scandalous or even close to the type of thing we see Trump do. It just seemed odd, including the story about him getting into a fight with a bad dude named "corn pop". Maybe I just fell for some of the noise that primary opposition can stir up during the season. It's difficult to avoid the narratives and characterizations of candidates that their primary opponents throw at them. I almost wish I hadn't read about any of them.
I hope Sanders is not the choice and that there's someone better than Bloomberg. Your logic makes sense about the race narrowing on these two, but that doesn't seem like a good thing to me.
Bloomberg has issued a clever, and with regard to the filthy and degrading language the President is trying to normalize, a cogent ad: I even love it, because it expresses one of my key issues, the degradation of language unbecoming in the public speech of a President. But I admit I know next to nothing about Bloomberg other than that he is significantly richer than you-know-who, and that makes him sore -it seems he has just issued some incoherent tweet about Bloomberg's golf skills, a bit rich coming from a known cheat who gets his security staff to move his balls closer to the hole....on the green that is....
Enjoy-
https://twitter.com/MikeBloomberg/st...80658807504897
According to this article, Bloomberg spent more on advertising last month than Hilary Clinton spent in her entire 2016 campaign. If he can effectively buy the nomination that underscores how sick American democracy really is.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ntial-election
It definitely highlights a problem in our political system and one that impairs us as a democracy. The idea of two billionaires competing for the presidency sounds nearly dystopian. Because I haven't liked the idea of Bloomberg as a candidate I haven't looked at his policies. He does have the baggage of the "stop and frisk" policy he instituted in New York as mayor that gave police permission to perform unconstitutional searches and had a racist impact on people of color. It's something he can overcome, but what does he bring to the table that people with a lifetime of public service like Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Joe Biden don't? He was/is a successful businessman mainly because he created the Bloomberg terminal that's used by all financial firms, but I don't see how that gives him special prowess when it comes to managing the U.S. economy.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
Edit: the article posted by filghy says Bloomberg opposed financial reforms in 2008. It's fairly obvious that deregulation and lax regulation leads to financial crises so that's a particularly bad sign.
Money has been a determining factor in US politics for decades, it is not new, but in Obama's case (in 2008), a lot of the money came from small donors and mounted to large sums. I suspect that is the way of life in the US, but the cost of the elections in obscene, though I believe attempts in law to limit campaign contributions have all but failed.
Have I underestimated Amy Klobuchar? Truth is, I don't know who she is, can anyone enlighten me, as the more I read about Sanders the more astonished I am this nauseating fraud has been allowed to run as a Democrat. As for the bagagge, don't all the candidates have something in their closet that could be used against them?