NoCalMike

Trump's description of the NY Seawall seems to be what everyone is saying about his border wall.

It's funny to me how the healthcare debate has morphed from private health insurance being the problem to "we can't get rid of private health insurance" I thought some of the European countries still allow private health insurance to be purchased as a supplement to the guaranteed healthcare provided by the government? If so, maybe one of the candidates should embrace that kind of idea, and if they already are, they need to explain that during the debate.

Honestly, a lot of the booing for Bernie felt staged. There were definitely factions for certain candidates in the crowd tonight and it seemed like one faction was prepared to boo anything Bernie said if it was directed towards Biden or Bloomberg. Tonight's debate definitely felt like at least 3-4 candidates know that the writing is on the wall if they don't outperform expectations on Super Tuesday.

Michael Moore probably just blowing hot air, but he claimed on twitter tickets to get into this debate cost up to $3200, and used that as a reason why there was a strong anti-Bernie contingent in there.

Bernie likely would have to compromise to get anything passed, especially with the current gov't, however what makes anyone think the GOP is willing to negotiate? We all saw their approach when Obama attempted to take a very middle of the road approach to the healthcare system. The GOP turned on their own ideas. That was their idea of negotiating. Obama tried to work with them for over a year on it and when it finally passed they pretended like it was "rammed down throats" That is currently the GOP's idea of compromise.

The thing is if Bernie wins, it's not like M4A is going to get any kind of traction legislatively with the current makeup of the House/Senate. Sanders is going to have to go to the American people and make the appeal that M4A was a large reason he won the election, and that the people must go to their local level elections and vote for candidates that would vote for it. If that doesn't happen in 2022, not sure what the pathway for M4A would be.

Yes. This has been common knowledge for a long time. Totally agree. What I am asking though is now that the GOP has decided they hate their own plan from the 90's.....what is their current proposal?

Rush claims to wants to tell the truth about something? The world is standing by with bated breath I am sure.

While all this debate on healthcare is going on during the Dem primary, what exactly is the GOP plan currently? The last I checked Trump is suing courts to get rid of pre-existing condition coverage while he public says he is protecting it. What else, besides completely overturning Obamacare has Trump or the GOP at large proposed? For the people who don't want M4A, or a public option, or the M4A...who want it idea.........what is the GOP proposing as an alternative? From where I stand, if the GOP actually decided to get serious about bringing affordable (and good quality) healthcare to the masses it would be a huge blow to a huge issue that tends to favor Dems regardless of the specific proposal.

War is a revolving door of money courtesy of the tax payer. Tax payers fund the soldiers going in, and then turn around and pay for the hand-picked contractors to do the rebuilding.

I always hear about employer based health coverage being equated to people having a choice, however, every employer I've worked for is the one making the choice for the employees. Sure, you might have a couple options to choose from, but this false idea of having choice through employer health coverage rings a little bit false.. I work for one of the bigger employers in my city and the most recent open enrollment the hammer dropped that one of the major vendors is no longer considered "in network" so anyone using them will either have to pay out of network costs as of Jan 1st 2020, or switch to a completely different plan. People are pretty upset, they will no longer be able to use doctors they have been going to for quite some time. Again, employees had zero choice in that decision. They also were told the HSA employer contribution was being reduced by nearly half the amount. (I say "they" because I am lucky enough that my wife works in the medical industry and we utilize her benefits.) THAT is what people are holding up as choice? If you have employer-based healthcare they can "take it away" or modify it at any time, and with costs constantly going up, it is pretty much guaranteed that if you work at a company long enough, it is going to happen, multiple times.

Well that goes back to my original point to a different poster, which is that elections are usually a battle of ideas not policy. More-so now than ever. Hillary Clinton ran policy circles around Trump constantly. Did it matter? Not enough apparently. If the race ends up Bernie vs. Trump.......we will have to see who wins the "idea war?" if you will.

Ok without responding to your entire post (sorry, I am about to leave work for the day). The problem with "until they realize you have to raise taxes..." criticism of healthcare, is that the second part of that equation is that your net costs go down......is almost never mentioned. Yes your taxes may go up, so you are contributing into the system, but you will have zero co-pays, zero premiums, zero deductibles. So if you can get past the big bad satanic term "taxes" and understand that your costs go down. It becomes an entirely different conversation. Bernie has tried to explain this time after time, but the media doesn't want to be honest about the topic. And look, I am all for analyzing and diving deep into the details of any & all plans being proposed on not just healthcare, but every issue, however I just want questions born out of honest critique and inquiry and not the gotcha-style "taxes, omg, taxes.....people did you hear that? TAXES!" type questions. I don't think the GOP listen to much outside of Fox News these days, so you're good homie.

Another thing to consider, the anti-establishment sentiment is not, nor ever was exclusive to the right. i think a lot of the talking heads on cable news assumed that because Trump was so awful that in 2020 everyone would line up to be a good little neo-liberal and get things back to usual. The problem is, the anti-establishment attitude is still very much alive and well, however this time it is picking up steam on the other side of the aisle and there is a lot of folks who by virtue of witnessing the disbelief of Donald Trump actually winning, think this might be the time to get off the couch and go see if they can't help get an actual leftist elected. Elections are about inspiring people. That is how the Democrats usually win. Obama ran a progressive campaign which energized the based and brought out new voters. He governed differently. Trump ran as anti-establishment. The closest you can attach "anti-establishment" to him is his unpredictability, but his actual policy is as corporate-right wing as they come. Now in 2020, the pendulum is swinging back and a lot of the Democratic base is maybe growing tired of the usual stuff and is willing to take a chance?

Well I think most general elections show they aren't won based on detailed policy. I think ideas win out over policy most of the time. Trump offered little to nothing on actual policy during the debates, but his ideas rallied the base. With Bernie, when it comes to the healthcare issue itself, I think the idea that "healthcare should be a right not a privilege for those who can afford it" is the idea that people go with, and when it becomes a debate about policy, eyes start to glaze over, but the core idea itself still polls well. I also disagree that people have not shown an appetite for progressive policies. To the contrary, a lot of progressive ideas poll favorably until you start using terms like "Gov't run" or "Socialism" or "taxes" And that is where the low information average voter thing comes into play.