You are more deluded than your supporters donnie if you think you won. I know you touted surveys that said the opposite but asking your staff and supporters does not count. As to the rules YOUR side agreed to them long before you took the stage so go yell at them like you have for years.
In my experience, it isn't a change at all. I'm covered by Blue Cross. How much my doctor bills is much higher than Blue Cross + my copay comes to. When I went to the emergency room a decade ago, their initial bill was then marked down about 80%. It seems like health care providers ask for the Moon, but then take what they can get. For Medicare recipients, that's what the system will pay, no different than other insurers.
Can confirm. In a universal healthcare insurance system doctors don't need a staff to argue with the health insurance companies. There's only one plan and everyone's on it.
Exactly, there is a lot of overhead for dealing with insurance companies and each one has different rules. For example, a couple years ago my insurance company decided they needed yearly preapprovals for a med I had been taking for years. Not only that but they argue over it. It is not like it is a controlled substance or anything. Why do we let these paper pushers override what my doctors say?
The Coronavirus CrisisWhat do you mean by "socialized the stock market"?
I tried Googling the phrase, and I'm pretty sure you don't mean what this guy means,
Socialize The Stock Market
The public should hold shares and workers should sit on boardsmedium.com
or what Jacobin mean (which is rather different)
Socialize Finance
We already live in a planned economy. Why not make it a democratic one?www.jacobinmag.com
And I really don't see why you think "the country is ready" to transfer taxpayers' money to people who own shares in HMOs but not (I assume) yet ready to have a proper publicly-owned and managed national health system.
theintercept.com
I'm afraid that a better comparison might be the late 1920's. We're doing a repetition of that timeline pretty closely. We have an issue with abolition. We have giant government scandals. We have a stock market being held up by less than legitimate or ethical means and we have giant wealth disparity.
Thanks -- I don't quite see why the article presents socialising the cost of bailing out the stock market as in some way responsible for government failure to do anything about unemployment. Rather, I see that as the Fed following a reasonable and sensible policy which the US government would have been wise to emulate in order to support workers, either through temporary furloughs or the business' actual closure.The Coronavirus Crisis
How the Fed Bailed Out the Investor Class Without Spending a Cent
David Dayen – May. 27
How the Fed Bailed Out the Investor Class Without Spending a Cent
Just announcing $4.5 trillion in future spending to support securities markets was enough to keep investors protected from the downsides of the pandemic.
Quoting the article since something is not working with the bbcode:
This unprecedented rescue of corporate America, done without the outlay of a single U.S. dollar, was described by Fed Chair Jerome Powell in an April 29 news conference as not only necessary, but positive. “Many companies that would’ve had to come to the Fed have now been able to finance themselves privately … and that’s a good thing,” Powell explained. It is somewhat positive that distressed companies could turn to regular credit markets instead of bottom feeders like private equity vultures or Warren Buffett. And because of the existing connections to flood the financial system with money, bailouts are almost literally as simple as turning on a light switch.
But to properly assess the virtues of the rescue, you have to set it in context. The unemployment rate is 14.7 percent and rising. Car lines for food banks stretch for miles. As Americans continue to struggle and lose ground, the nation’s investment elite have been thus far saved from any downside of the coronavirus crisis. Beneficiaries are largely confined to stockholders, bondholders, and corporate executives (who are often major stockholders). Workers are not only not protected, they’re paying for the rescue, with taxpayer money propping up the Fed actions.
“This is a massive wealth transfer to owners of financial assets,” said Lev Menand, a former Treasury official who now teaches at Columbia University. “The rules of the game are supposed to be that equities take the loss, high-yield debt holders take the loss.” Allowing them to instead bear no burden is a form of socialism for capitalists.
It would perhaps be more tolerable if anyone other than the rich shared in the gains of this corporate rescue. But the Fed’s bond-buying program, unlike the Paycheck Protection Program, has no requirements on companies to retain workers. The Fed changed the term sheets between March 23 and April 9, eliminating any such requirements. Apple’s recent debt issuance, which could later be purchased directly or indirectly by the Fed, explicitly states that it will be used for, among other things, “share buybacks and dividends” — forms of leaking money to investors rather than keeping workers on payroll.
In addition, the Fed has essentially outsourced its bond-buying and loan-making authority to big money managers and banks, heightening the need for connections with these giants to get relief. Smaller companies, who don’t have the revenue or technical know-how to issue bonds into public markets, will find it more difficult to get in line for relief. Meanwhile, lending to small businesses and individuals has slowed as banks pull back during the crisis; by one count, interest rates charged to small businesses are now double the rates for large firms. Running bailouts through the Fed necessarily enhances the survival of large financial players and big corporations; everyone else must fight for crumbs.
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We are facing the 2008 financial crisis on steroids, in every sense.
As for "transfer[ring] taxpayers' money to people who own shares in HMOs but not (I assume) yet ready to have a proper publicly-owned and managed national health system," we're already doing that via the ACA. By going for single payer, we at least increase access and introduce some measures to control costs since there will be only one payer in town.
It is the more apt comparison in terms of the damage, but not in terms of the government response. The government response of 2008 was to protect the assets of the rich, giving them liquidity to buy up our homes and businesses at fire sale prices. In the 20s and 30s, we had stronger left-wing parties and labor efforts to advocate for the people. Now, even the so-called left is afraid of any real solution because "socialism," and other right-wing framing.
The Fed's policy is not all bad, but it's limited only to the wealthiest and thus protects asset values without doing squat to protect normal people. The Fed has also been pumping billions of dollars into the banking system every night for about a year, when the overnight lending rates became unstable. This is great for the stock market, but the vast majority of Americans do not own stocks in any meaningful fashion and not even a majority of people have 401ks. The policies that we have had in response to coronavirus and just about everything have been protecting the wealthy above all else: Socialism for the rich, while everyone else gets Social Darwinism. That is unsustainable. We are careening toward a massive fall and Congress is not acting accordingly. The affluent people among us don't know it because they've been anesthetized with the propping up of the stock market. Congress is not representing the majority of us; it's been that way for a while now, but we are heading to even more unrest if these conditions are not handled at scale. The austerity mindset is going to bring us fascism and civil war. The lagging response to the 2008 financial crisis brought us Trump, primarily, in my view. This crisis is even worse, because the financial players have trillions of dollars and credit flowing like water to buy up our homes and businesses at fire sale prices. You don't understand how dangerous this is.
We have a number of problems with our healthcare system, true. But I see it that sticking with the ACA does exactly what you think Medicare for All will do. We have a doctor shortage, yes, but that's probably true the entire world over. So why shouldn't we have universal health care? Medicare for All won't solve that. But it will help millions of people to just get basic care without breaking the bank. By using the power and authority that CMS has, it can absolutely bend the cost curve and break the insurance industry. That's why they're so busy brainwashing people into thinking it can't work, is evil, is impractical, blah blah. Even in the face of a fucking pandemic, where people will AVOID going to the doctor because they don't want to be socked with surprise bills. The system is evil but a single payer system - even if we did something closer to France or Australia - would be immensely better.
But about 80%, as I understand it, of US stocks are owned by institutional investors -- pensions funds, insurance companies, banks, charitable trusts and so on -- and no matter who owns them, stocks and shares represent assets against which you can borrow.
Seems to me there are two separate questions here.
This is true, but most people do not own stocks in any capacity. Most people don't have pensions. Most people do not have 401ks. Most people do not have IRAs. The majority of seniors are dependent upon Social Security as their main source of income. Only about 10% of people own any stocks and most of it are the wealthiest of that 10%. Thus the stock market does not reflect reality at all. All the liquidity that has been thrown into the market to prop up the banks has been inflating stock prices, to no benefit to the vast majority of workers.
There are numerous studies out there showing that Medicare for All will save money. Even a right-wing study paid for by the Koch brothers in its crosstabs demonstrated that there would be savings versus the status quo. The best study so far came from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. There are enormous differences, especially in that Medicare would at last have negotiating power on the prices of drugs and would set the prices for all regions for compensation. It has extremely low overhead and is the most efficient payer. It doesn't have to worry about paying bonuses for denying people care or advertising every year to get members. It's not perfect but even in its current state, it would still be better than what many if not most people have. Preserving the ACA does nothing to fix our problems, either, and perpetuates our grossly unequal system. It should only be a stepping stone. Even if we never get to an NHS, we don't necessarily have to. Canada, Australia or even France would suffice. I don't know why you seem to demand that we get to an NHS.
Even the non-profits are a joke; they just jack up compensation to suck up more revenue. Look at Susan G. Komen For The Cure. Their salaries have gone up handsomely.
I had something in mind like the Canadian system or health in Europe. I probably worded it badly.
