Can Bernie Sanders Make This A One Term President?

Anyone battling an incumbent is going to be fighting an uphill battle. Presidents generally have an easy time getting reelected to a second term. Something to bear in mind, at least if Trump lasts, which he might do if he finally settles down a bit with the incendiary talk and tweeting and doesn't get busted for some crime.

 

In order to make an "Educated Guess" one is required to know enough verifiable data to do so, At this point all I know is that Trumpco is under investigation by what seems the most competent and disciplined team ever assembled, that Grand Juries are stablished and active, that multiple key witnesses have been questioned and that things have moved into the one thing Trump is afraid of...finances.
For these reasons I am comfortable with my comments but because the ship is so damn tight there is no further information to be educated on...yet.

 

So you're not smart enough to make a simple guess? "Hey AS, I think he'll be impeached in 2 years".
Man, that was really tough.
Are you still not big boy enough to make your guess on Trump's impeachment you're so sure is going to happen? I don't know how to make this question any easier for you.

 

Actually, I am "Smart Enough" not to venture a guess because as stated there is inadequate data to do so. Believe it or not....there are some people who try not to pretend they know stuff or make things up because it makes them happy. Attempting to goad me with childish insult has not been effective since the elementary school your mentality dwells in.

 

LOL! You don't want me to screen shot your hilarious guess, and then bring it back up when that time comes and goes. Cause then you'd know that I'd use it in a thread, you'd be super embarrassed, and then you'd put me on "ignore". Only that wouldn't solve your problem, because by that time, everyone else would see your post!

 

Fine......just to get you to shut up.

Meuller releases findings- February 2018
Congress begins impeachment hearings- April 2018
Trump resigns- July 2018

Civilian trials begin for Trumpco- Sept 2018-Dec 2018

 

He didn't give away free stuff, although that is how the right sees it. He simply helped the non elites who were creating the income and wealth, to get a larger share of that, creating the largest middle class in world history. Of course millionaires became richer by the millions, new millionaires were created, but the workers also prospered. Some people do not like the dirty masses prospering by their labor, and so they call it free stuff being given away. Only owners should make enough money to live on. Workers just do not deserve it. For they are not owners. And yet, if every American were an owner, who in the hell would do the labor to make the owner his own income? LOL So, if you need workers, and if you understand without them the owner would not have ****, treat those workers like they are as important as the owners. But for some reason conservatives cannot wrap their conservative minds around the self evident. It is a screwed up value system that drives their beliefs. Generally these people also feel they are above the person who labors for a living and being above them of course deserve to prosper by their own work, while the lowly laborer should never prosper. Might make those laborers uppity and think they are equal to the upper middle class. And we cannot have that, no sir. The trouble with the world is not the laborer who wants enough to live on, and some security. It is the people who are in a higher class who don't want anyone beneath them to have enough to live on. The base side of human nature has always skewed this, and they always end up saying people are getting free stuff. When all they were getting was a fairer and more moral share of the income they were creating. And this has been an age old battle. For the less you can pay the people doing the work, for you, the more you can keep for yourself. Greed has always corrupted capitalism and always will. That is what selfish human being do. We seem to be hardwired to do it given how common it is.

 

We need younger blood, a 70 year old man or women may have lots of experience but we need younger blood who will be around for the long haul

 

Trump had no experience in governance whatsoever.

THAT is the massive blunder that we made.

There really is no reason to suspect age is a problem for Trump, as he's plenty active - unless you are arguing that he is going down to age related dementia.

 

Pretty much.

Bernie will be too old.

Kamala Harris: Clinton 2.0, but not as unlikeable.

Not that anyone could be as unlikeable as Hillary...

 

On a per capita basis the United States blows every European country out of the ****ing water on public investment in health and education. Government in the US spends more money on health care than France does(per capita), and a **** load more on education.

Germans(myself included) are an industrious people who work long hours and wholeheartedly embrace austerity, the European diet in general eliminates most health problems, and most European nations actually enjoy education.

I work construction, and I'm extremely good at it and unbelievably productive because I don't give a **** about my paycheck. I make $60,000 a year from working, and spent $20,000 on a European vacation in May, and saved $30,000. That should make it obvious that I've one of the privileged few that don't have to work for a living, and that applies to all aspects of life. If you enjoy something, and if you value something, you will do it. Most Americans don't value their health or their education, which is why we spend trillions of dollars every year with poor results.

 

The % of GDP the US spends on education is slightly less than the OECD average.

You're right about health, though. We spend more, and in some cases FAR more.

I don't see indications that we're getting value for that extra expenditure, though.

 

We don't get the same bang for the buck because government is incredibly inefficient and wasteful. 66% of expenditures from "insurance companies" are our tax dollars, and every study done clearly proves that in all instances private insurance results in vastly superior care and outcomes than Medicaid or Medicare.

Even with best price practices employed by all Federal health programs(excluding Medicare for obvious reasons), spending per recipient remains astronomical. On average(with minor variations by state, excluding Alaska) Medicaid runs $28,000 per year for a family of 4, which is substantially higher than private insurance.

 

I'm not sure what you're trying to point out here.

Every other industrialized nation in the world has some form of single payer system covering all their citizens, and spends less than we do. Many of those countries have systems that provide care of the same quality as ours, while covering all citizens - even the ones expensive to cover, such as our citizens who are on Medicare and Medicaid.

Medicare and Medicaid address people with higher risk factors, so one would expect coverage to be more costly.

Plus, only a segment of our population is covered by these programs, making it a fact that they do not get the same level of political attention. We have that same problem with VA coverage - only a small minority can use it, so the standard of care, the wastefulness, etc., can get to be pretty bad before it reaches the attention of congress. On June 5, the VA announced another effort to try to catch up with modern patient record technology! Good, but...

If congress were required to use Medicare or VA it would be quite different.

This is one more reason the US should have ONE system, and it should include all citizens - even congress.

 

Most members of Congress do use Medicare, or receive their insurance from an individual plan purchased on the Federal Health Exchange. Before the ACA they used FEHB, which is the exact same plan utilized by all Federal employees. The idea that Congress is somehow excluded from this mess is ridiculous. They receive better care because most of them are wealthy, and believe it or not when you hit 70 and are worth $10-100 million you realize you can't take it with you.

Plus 1 in 4 Republican Congressmen(in 2015) were eligible for VA benefits. Medicare receives incredible political attention because it covers the bulk of high propensity voters, and Democrats go ape **** all the time over Medicaid. Government is wasteful because NO ONE IS ACCOUNTABLE, and moving to single payer will not change that. Most cost projections for a single payer system zero in around $2.5 trillion a year(and Sanders estimate is completely absurd and laughable), which means tax rates would have to go way up to cover a single payer system.

You could go ahead and assume that all non FICA(as if we expand Medicare that is the logical source of revenue) Federal revenue currently being spent on health care would be rolled right over into our new shiny Medicare for All, but we all know that sure as hell isn't going to happen, FICA Medicare rates would have to at least quadruple, totaling 12% of ALL WAGES, plus a substantial tax on investment income. Now you might think, well that's no big deal, because we're already paying for health care, but for many people that's not true. The VA and Medicaid are free, neither my wife or I pay a penny for health care(premiums and deductibles are completely covered by employers) as well as many other Americans. So right now about half the population pays nothing for health care, and now they'll be paying an extra 4.5% of their incomes(with their employer matching for a total of 9%), which is a ****load of money.

 

OK, here's the problem:

Total US health care spending is more than $3.2 trillion per year right now.

If we could go back to $2.5 trillion, that would be HUGE!!!

So, please explain.

 

Total health spending is not an expense incurred by individuals when they(or their employer) pay for access to health care. Total health spending is the hospital investing in new equipment, facilities, and clinical trials, pharmaceutical research, etc.

Hospital care, private doctors and clinicians, and prescription drugs filled through a pharmacy accounted for 62% of total health care spending in 2016, or $2 trillion. I'm lining up to pay 25% more for my health care.

 

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/new-peak-us-health-care-spending-10345-per-person/

The 62% figure I cited is at the bottom of the article.

 

No, that $3.2 trillion is real money being spent. It didn't come from nowhere.

You can't say, "Some came from corporations, so it doesn't count."

You can't say, "They spent some on research, so it doesn't count."

What the right wing did was to start with the premise that a single payer system must be opposed by charging that it would be HUGELY expensive.

BUT, the catch with that is that in EVERY country where they use single payer type systems they spend far less - an amount less that can not be made up by suggesting other countries don't do research at the same rate per capita or that they hide their research dollars or whatever.

When they came out with their $2.5 trillion more tax dollars idea someone should laugh in their collective faces.

 

Obviously, under a single payer system you would be paying more tax (depending on your marginal rate) and no insurance premium. And, corporations would still pay taxes at some level, but wouldn't be involved in administering health care, which has a serious impact, I think.

I'd like to see a breakdown of the 38% omitted - the part not accounted for in the 62%. I'm not willing to pony up at the paywall, however.

 

That 62% is what is paid to doctors, hospitals and pharmacists (for prescription drugs), right?

Surely the remaining 38% includes what is paid to insurance companies for management and administration services + profit. And, it must include Medicare, Medicaid and VA costs outside of what is paid to hospitals, doctors and pharmacies - which would include management and administration.

I wish they had given the full breakout.

 

Perhaps you have no experience with the generally accepted principles of accounting or how business in general works. I'm a construction worker, and my shop is currently working on 7 new facilities for local hospitals, most of them public universities. Those buildings are exclusively for the use of treating patients, and therefore a health care expenditure. Entities, whether they are public or private, anticipate need 20-30 years in the future.

Most economic demands are inelastic, as was perfectly seen here in Dallas last week when people made a run on the gas pumps. The fuel distributors had so many tankers and so many Class A drivers with a HazMat endorsement, and no matter demand only so much supply can be added at once. Likewise there's only so many construction workers, so much drywall, so much copper tube, etc. That's why hospitals are always under construction-population and demand are growing, and if you don't have the supply to meet it you're going to go bust.

Total health expenditure is not what the consumer pays, but what the consumer and the provide pay to make it all happen. It's like saying that I paid $20,000 for a car, that car from production to sale cost $18,000 to make(including commissions, overhead and all that), so I actually paid $38,000 for my car.

 

Speaking of paywalls, my wife coauthored dozens of articles with a current Trump appointee, and is absolutely terrified that she is getting savagely slammed by colleagues, to the point that she's almost ready to throw down $10k to get past the paywalls(it's about 3 or 4 sites that only have corporate subscriptions purchased by major law firms.

 

I tried looking but it appears we're in the dark on that. I would assume that the 62% figure includes all health related expenditures made by government health programs.

 

I know what you're talking about, but I don't see an indication that that is what the study of health care expenditures in that article is doing.

Hospitals, doctors and pharmacies are private concerns. They don't have their hospitals, offices and equipment provided for them from some other source of money. Also, under a single payer system, we'll have the same hospitals, doctors and pharmacies. So, even if you choose some other accounting methodology, you have to stay consistent.

When you build someone a hospital, they had to borrow that money and will be paying it back once they are in business, just like they will be paying for scalpels and nurses. That won't change simply by being single payer.

For this issue, we're interested in what we pay for health care, not what hospitals spend their money on.