2020 Presidential Primaries

You miss the whole point. I want private coverage for everything, not simply those things M4A doesn't cover.

I want choices, options. I want the ability to say "I'm dissatisfied with your service and am taking my money elsewhere."

I can't make my position clearer than that.

You could make your position clearer by specifying what you believe M4A would deny you. Unless you can prove M4A would deny you the option of seeking private insurance, you're just whining.

The liberty to opt out is a foreign concept because in their mind, government knows best.

"Tell 'em, Jim! Tell 'em, Jim!"

Choice.

Wow, so I can keep the private insurance I have and am satisfied with, and not have to still pay the taxes for the public plan? Good to know!

See, if you'd just started with your initial premise ["OMFG, TEH TAXESSSSS!!!!!"] you'd have saved yourself days of trying to rationalize your position.

He wants the illusion of choice, which comes with the illusion of paying fewer taxes.

Out of curiosity, what's your deductible? What's your office visit copay?

Don't recall the numbers, but they're low. Prescriptions are $5, office copay is $30 (IIRC). Max. out of pocket is around $5K.

IIRC Paladin has stated in the past that out of principle he wants private coverage even if there was a cheaper and more efficient government option.

Trying to debate him on this issue is pointless because you're coming at it from entirely different directions.

Why don't we just call it what it is with @Paladin . It is a childish objection that he cannot explain but is never going to go for. As long as it is from the government he is going to be angry. It could be better all around and beneficial to the world and he will simply not like it because he is a dim witted bufoon like trump,.

Yes, although a more efficient government option is only for argument's sake as I don't believe there would be any such thing.

The key point is: I want to have choice on my health care, and I want to retain the right to find other service if I'm unsatisfied. Also, I don't want asshole politicians determining what level of health care coverage to dispense to me or what I'm charged.

Cool. My numbers are pretty good as well -- $1,000 deductible, a $20 office copay, and I think a $60 ER copay, although I've never had to find out. I had pretty major surgery in December and my total bill was $1,000. No more than a mild annoyance.

Wanna know what the numbers would be under M4A?

Are they $0? Because I'm still not interested.

This is some bullshit.

They are. Personally, I'm not 100% sure that's a good idea -- I think some level of buy-in is probably a good idea to discourage frivolous use. But nonetheless ...

So are you also angry about the fire department? After all, it seems like it should be your right to choose alternate ways to protect your house and not have to pay for those other bums.

He is certainly willing to pay more to inconvenience others just like the brat he is.

I love it when people cut off their nose to spite their face. The plans you can "choose" are either the ones chosen by your employer or the ones the insurors choose to let you have. I'd much rather choose my doctor than my insurance plan.

If you're a taxpayer, you'd be buying in with your tax dollars.

They're not going to learn. They're going to make the same mistakes they made with Clinton, except this time with a man who has no chance up against Trump. Bernie was gentle with Biden tonight, as he's said in the past that Biden was his friend. Donald Trump is going to be a nasty opponent, and he won't pull his punches like Bernie did, whereas Joe Biden still managed to lie repeatedly anyway (Social Security, Banking bill, abortion, LGBTQ+ rights) and CNN enabled him to do it, covering as they went without a fact check on Biden.

They don't understand protestors who have principles, because they've been in the politics game so long they've been consumed by optics. Performative liberalism, and the appearance of diversity might as well be the genuine article for them. If Joe Biden understood intersectional feminism, he'd know that simply saying you'll nominate a woman does not make you feminist.

Says the rare individual who has it in professed abundance.

Which is not the scenario I postulated.

All government is bad. Everything it does is bad. It should do nothing. So sayeth Sir Ronnie of the Holy Order of Rand.

I waited to see what happened with Joe in a debate one on one to see if he was going to be torn apart by trump. He seemed to be pretty coherent. He looked like he would be fine as an opponent even if trump were to shout and holler.

At this point it looks like Biden, and I think he is going to do fine. Bernie has not put together the sort of support he wanted. That is what you have to do. without a complete fail by Biden I have to say he is the stronger candidate vs trump, but like always it is corrupt shitburger vs even more corrupt trumpburger.

The real change has to start in congress as much as I would like a progressive president. The progressives have to make sure they keep at the dems and get more of their people voted in to take on pelosi.

I am actually a bit relieved it is Biden. Let the establishment take the hammering. He is going to get in and have a complete meltdown of an economy, huge debt, and he is going to shovel another bailout out there. Let the progressive wing fight against that and have the immediate fallout from the trump economy hit the establishment dem camp and then primary the fuck out of them in four years.

From a long term perspective they should have let Bernie take the blame for the hardship of the post trump america. Bernie would have had to perform a miracle to deal with the trump crash and trump's covid response. We know pain and problems are coming because trump borrowed way too much money. Bernie and democratic socialism would have been blamed for what is coming. Instead the establishment dems are putting Joe in charge. In four years americans will be screaming and there will be even more of the progressive kids ready to vote to remove the corrupt boomers from office. We might even see a huge death toll of the 60 plus crowd due to respiratory ailments from this disease.

In four years democratic socialism will still be there while establishment capitalism will be suffering from the trump era. At that point they need to produce someone better than Bernie who can lead people into the future. Give this shit to Biden and watch the bomb blow up in the establishment hands while Bernie and AOC rally people and say told ya so.

Stares at Ohio.

You know what? I may be wrong. Joe Biden might get a lot of legislation passed if he becomes President. I mean, it will be Republican legislation, but legislation. I guess that's good if you don't give a fuck about the most vulnerable:
https://readsludge.com/2020/03/17/b...at-could-make-coronavirus-vaccine-affordable/

Nothing will fundamentally change if Joe Biden is president. Too bad for all of the elderly people who went out and voted for Joe today, risking their lives because the Biden campaign said it was safe, even though the CDC said it wasn't. They might need that cobbled together healthcare that will still leave 10 million without adequate coverage, and they'll likely need it sooner rather than later.

As Anc correctly pointed out, the timeline of the swine flu was wrong. Obama did not wait that long to take action.
That said 12K people died in 2009 (not too damn long ago) but I do not even remember anything CLOSE to the hubbub we are experiencing now! I had to google swine flu because I forgot all about it. Maybe the economic meltdown was the much bigger news or something. But there was no epic disruption like this time.
What's up with that?

Maybe because government was proactive and didn’t wait until the shit hit the fan. I do remember people bellyaching afterward about the big false alarm. As Dr. Fauci said, if people don’t think you’re overreacting you’re not doing enough.