Political Roundtable Part XX

[TGW]

So where are the cost controls from buying insurance on an individual level? You do understand that private insurers, doctors, and hospitals pass their losses on to those with insurance, right? That's how insurance works.

There's only two solutions to the problem. Go back to the pre-1930's style of healthcare, which is if you don't have insurance or money to pay for a doctor or hospital stay, you die. That's not hyperbolic...that's what it was.

Or you give healthcare to everyone...you know, like every modern industrialized country in the world. You know, the ones that allow all citizens access to basic care with sustainable costs. Yea...we should go with that.

[dckingsfan]

So where are the cost controls from buying insurance on an individual level? You do understand that private insurers, doctors, and hospitals pass their losses on to those with insurance, right? That's how insurance works.

There's only two solutions to the problem. Go back to the pre-1930's style of healthcare, which is if you don't have insurance or money to pay for a doctor or hospital stay, you die. That's not hyperbolic...that's what it was.

Or you give healthcare to everyone...you know, like every modern industrialized country in the world. You know, the ones that allow all citizens access to basic care with sustainable costs. Yea...we should go with that.

Thanks for the lecture on what insurance is... and actually there were multiple solutions to the insurance issue. We just chose the worst one.

For example: We could have had private insurance where everyone purchased their own insurance (no carveout for corporations) with deductibles (so that individuals would care about the costs) - and some of the ACA legislation is quite good in this way (pre-existing conditions, for example). Or as you suggest, have the government provide insurance. Either would have worked. It was when the government started getting involved in the other issues that we had the start to our meltdown.

But the cost drivers are only partially driven by insurance - there are MANY cost drivers that need to be contained. And that is where the ACA failed miserably (I know, they are Ds, not progressives). So, single payer isn't a panacea without the accompanying legislation that takes care of the cost drivers.

[stilldropin20]

So where are the cost controls from buying insurance on an individual level? You do understand that private insurers, doctors, and hospitals pass their losses on to those with insurance, right? That's how insurance works.

There's only two solutions to the problem. Go back to the pre-1930's style of healthcare, which is if you don't have insurance or money to pay for a doctor or hospital stay, you die. That's not hyperbolic...that's what it was.

Or you give healthcare to everyone...you know, like every modern industrialized country in the world. You know, the ones that allow all citizens access to basic care with sustainable costs. Yea...we should go with that.

ok. just wondering. IN your everything is "free" society.

1. If everyone "gets" medical insurance does this include dental insurance?

2. And is the dental insurance capped each year? For example, right now the typical good insurance has $2500-5000 in max benefits and typical bad insurance has a max of $500-$1000. So like medical, are we going with no maximums???

3. And...is every single dental procedure covered???

because if so??? I'm in! I will come off my budget hawk stance. cave in. fully. and vote for your candidate. . As it makes no sense for me to care about the budget because clearly only one of you does. 1 in 10? Not worth the head ache. none(10%) of you are ready to spend less money. and none(10%, same guy) of you are ready to tax the rich and redistribute the wealth.

So there is no use in dying on either of these hills. So long as your candidate is including dental insurance for everyone in your campaign pledge with no maximums to include all dental procedures, You have my vote!! YOU! HAVE!! MY!! VOTE!! I'm in!!!

Who am i voting for? does he look orange too? By the way, I'm dead serious. For you bernie lovers, if you include dental in your "free medical" for everyone...I. am. in.

[gtn130]

Literally every independent and non right wing analysis predicted this would happen. This is why it's so disingenuous to give equal weighting to both sides on issues. Every single Republican was full of **** on this issue talking about unleashing animal spirits of the economy nonsense.

Yup. Rubio, Corker et al are all just playing dumb. They knew what they signed off on and are now trying to walk it back and have it both ways.

[stilldropin20]

Literally every independent and non right wing analysis predicted this would happen. This is why it's so disingenuous to give equal weighting to both sides on issues. Every single Republican was full of **** on this issue talking about unleashing animal spirits of the economy nonsense.

Yup. Rubio, Corker et al are all just playing dumb. They knew what they signed off on and are now trying to walk it back and have it both ways.

yeah. i see what you mean, now. what should we do about it?

[gtn130]

Literally every independent and non right wing analysis predicted this would happen. This is why it's so disingenuous to give equal weighting to both sides on issues. Every single Republican was full of **** on this issue talking about unleashing animal spirits of the economy nonsense.

Yup. Rubio, Corker et al are all just playing dumb. They knew what they signed off on and are now trying to walk it back and have it both ways.

yeah. i see what you mean, now. what should we do about it?

Glad you asked!

Vote out the GOP.

[TGW]

So where are the cost controls from buying insurance on an individual level? You do understand that private insurers, doctors, and hospitals pass their losses on to those with insurance, right? That's how insurance works.

There's only two solutions to the problem. Go back to the pre-1930's style of healthcare, which is if you don't have insurance or money to pay for a doctor or hospital stay, you die. That's not hyperbolic...that's what it was.

Or you give healthcare to everyone...you know, like every modern industrialized country in the world. You know, the ones that allow all citizens access to basic care with sustainable costs. Yea...we should go with that.

Thanks for the lecture on what insurance is... and actually there were multiple solutions to the insurance issue. We just chose the worst one.

For example: We could have had private insurance where everyone purchased their own insurance (no carveout for corporations) with deductibles (so that individuals would care about the costs) - and some of the ACA legislation is quite good in this way (pre-existing conditions, for example). Or as you suggest, have the government provide insurance. Either would have worked. It was when the government started getting involved in the other issues that we had the start to our meltdown.

But the cost drivers are only partially driven by insurance - there are MANY cost drivers that need to be contained. And that is where the ACA failed miserably (I know, they are Ds, not progressives). So, single payer isn't a panacea without the accompanying legislation that takes care of the cost drivers.

If you have laid out your solution in this thread, then pardon my post. I might have missed it. If you could link to your post on tackling the problem, that would be great. I honestly want to see what your solution to our healthcare cost is.

[dckingsfan]

So where are the cost controls from buying insurance on an individual level? You do understand that private insurers, doctors, and hospitals pass their losses on to those with insurance, right? That's how insurance works.

There's only two solutions to the problem. Go back to the pre-1930's style of healthcare, which is if you don't have insurance or money to pay for a doctor or hospital stay, you die. That's not hyperbolic...that's what it was.

Or you give healthcare to everyone...you know, like every modern industrialized country in the world. You know, the ones that allow all citizens access to basic care with sustainable costs. Yea...we should go with that.

Thanks for the lecture on what insurance is... and actually there were multiple solutions to the insurance issue. We just chose the worst one.

For example: We could have had private insurance where everyone purchased their own insurance (no carveout for corporations) with deductibles (so that individuals would care about the costs) - and some of the ACA legislation is quite good in this way (pre-existing conditions, for example). Or as you suggest, have the government provide insurance. Either would have worked. It was when the government started getting involved in the other issues that we had the start to our meltdown.

But the cost drivers are only partially driven by insurance - there are MANY cost drivers that need to be contained. And that is where the ACA failed miserably (I know, they are Ds, not progressives). So, single payer isn't a panacea without the accompanying legislation that takes care of the cost drivers.

If you have laid out your solution in this thread, then pardon my post. I might have missed it. If you could link to your post on tackling the problem, that would be great. I honestly want to see what your solution to our healthcare cost is.

Will do - and we are probably on the same page. Instead of going back and searching - I will just lay it back out...

[stilldropin20]

Yup. Rubio, Corker et al are all just playing dumb. They knew what they signed off on and are now trying to walk it back and have it both ways.

yeah. i see what you mean, now. what should we do about it?

Glad you asked!

Vote out the GOP.

Ok. but who do i vote for? will the dems just give my money away to Iran and let them build nukes?

Or will they do something really special for the american people? like spend 6 trillion on a stimulus where we all get $40 bucks?? I could use 40 bucks, ya know. that could get me a couple meals at portillos. well ok maybe 1 meal.

[TGW]

HuffPo actually showing some balls and calling out the fake Democrats. Good for them!

9 Democrats Sign Up To Help Wall Street Steal Cars
They’re backing a bill to undermine the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
headshot
By Zach Carter
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is one of nine congressional Democrats backing legislation that would undermine the Consumer Finan
BILL CLARK VIA GETTY IMAGES
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is one of nine congressional Democrats backing legislation that would undermine the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

If an ordinary person committed any of the abuses listed in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s latest complaint against Wells Fargo, other ordinary people might call it “theft,” or “car theft.”

Alas, Wells Fargo is only considered an ordinary person when it spends money on elections. The rest of the time, it is a too-big-to-fail bank, and improperly relieving its customers of their automobiles is just one of a few “unfair acts and practices” to which it neither admitted nor denied when it agreed to settle a federal investigation on Friday.

But the bank will pay a very high price for these alleged misdeeds ― $1 billion, the highest the CFPB has ever imposed against a financial institution.

The CFPB’s description of Wells Fargo’s behavior is breathtaking. The company “forcibly placed duplicative or unnecessary insurance on hundreds of thousands” of vehicles owned by customers who had taken out a car loan with the bank. This not only resulted in a typical charge of “over $1,000” to which these customers had never agreed, but “for at least 27,000 customers,” the bureau wrote, “the additional costs of the Force-Placed Insurance could have contributed to a default that resulted in the repossession of their vehicle.”

In a better world, the Federal Reserve would prevent serial offender banks like Wells Fargo from existing, and the Department of Justice would prosecute mass car theft as a crime. But it is at least good that a federal regulator exists to levy fines against these outrages and give restitution to wronged families. The CFPB has only been around a few years, but prior to the Wells Fargo settlement, it had returned about $12 billion in ill-gotten gains to American consumers ― a figure that is considerably higher after its biggest-ever settlement.

The bureau is a creation of the Democratic Party, signed into law by President Barack Obama and designed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Yet some congressional Democrats are joining Republicans supporting legislation that consumer advocates say would strip the CFPB of the power to bring cases like the one it just settled with Wells Fargo.

The bill, authored by one of the bureau’s most ferocious critics, Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), has the backing of self-styled progressives, such as Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), along with six more conservative House Democrats and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

The legislation would deny the CFPB jurisdiction over companies that are subject to state insurance regulation that also engage in “offering or providing a consumer financial product or service.” For such firms, which include essentially every major bank, the bureau would lose its authority “to the extent such [company] is engaged in the business of insurance.” State insurance regulators, which have a much weaker record of consumer protection enforcement, would replace the CFPB.

In January, the progressive advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform sent a sharply worded letter to members of Congress warning that the bill ”strikes a major blow against CFPB regulatory authority over large financial services firms” that “would have called into question the CFPB’s ability to investigate and punish the Wells Fargo scheme to sell unnecessary insurance to its auto credit customers.”

A month earlier, 20 organizations, including the National Fair Housing Alliance, the National Consumer Law Center and the Consumer Federation of America, cited the Wells Fargo case as they brought their concerns to Duffy. Not only do state regulators have a weak record of enforcement, many states simply do not have effective consumer protection laws on the books.

“In the weeks before the disclosure that Wells Fargo had falsely placed 800,000 lender-placed auto policies, state insurance regulators ... [claimed] there were purportedly no problems in that market,” the groups wrote.

Manchin and Moore have a long history of supporting bank-friendly legislation at the expense of American families, and both declined to comment for this article. A Baldwin spokesperson insisted that the bill doesn’t actually do anything.

“This legislation does not strip or change the agency’s authority to enforce compliance when an insurer offers CFPB-covered products,” Baldwin’s staffer said. “The bill simply clarifies that the CFPB’s role is to enforce consumer protection laws and also reaffirms existing law on state-based regulation of insurance by State Insurance Offices and Commissioners. CFPB retains the oversight authority being used in its enforcement action against Wells Fargo, which Senator Baldwin has strongly supported.”

Robert Hunter, director of insurance at the Consumer Federation of America, doesn’t agree. He describes the language as “very expansive,” with the potential to undermine enforcement against a vast array of abuses perpetrated by financial conglomerates. Birnie Birnbaum, executive director of the Center for Economic Justice, called the bill “outrageous.”

”With the exception of a few states, the record of state regulators on this is terrible,” Birnbaum told HuffPost. “Wells Fargo force-placed some 800,000 policies erroneously. No insurance regulator caught that.”

The language of the bill is broad and vague, leaving a tremendous amount of activity susceptible to court challenge if the CFPB were to act against insurance providers. And it includes a provision stating that, when in doubt, “the enforcement of this title shall be broadly construed in favor of the authority of a state insurance regulator” over the CFPB.

The bill passed the House Financial Services Committee in January by a vote of 37 to 18, with seven Democrats voting in favor: David Scott (Ga.); Emanuel Cleaver (Mo.); Gwen Moore (Wis.); Ed Perlmutter (Colo.); Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.); Joyce Beatty (Ohio); and Josh Gottheimer (N.J.). It has yet to receive a floor vote in either chamber.

but, but, but the CFPB is horrible government oversight...

[dckingsfan]

yeah. i see what you mean, now. what should we do about it?

Glad you asked!

Vote out the GOP.

Ok. but who do i vote for? will the dems just give my money away to Iran and let them build nukes?

Or will they do something really special for the american people? like spend 6 trillion on a stimulus where we all get $40 bucks?? I could use 40 bucks, ya know. that could get me a couple meals at portillos. well ok maybe 1 meal.

I think you have a really tough time in Illinois where the Ds have been really corrupt both historically and recently. Cognitive dissonance in a big way.

And you can vote out the Rs as gtn suggests (and what I am doing) - but it won't lead to better government until at least one of the parties cares enough to have some sort of sustainable government. I do think this R establishment needs to take a beating though... they just haven't done a good job.

[TGW]

"will the dems just give my money away to Iran and let them build nukes?"

I have STD blocked, but I saw this in a quoted reply, and had to respond. This has to be some of the fakest news I've ever seen on these boards (and there's a lot of it so that's saying something). This statement is such a lie it's disgusting. What's even sadder is that this idiot probably tells this lie to his other idiot friends, and they repeat it.

No, none of YOUR money is going to Iran, S.T.D.

Any money that goes to Iran is THEIR MONEY. Money from their accounts. Money that the U.S. has confiscated. That is the crux of the Iran deal. Iran stops building nukes and the US gives them their money back. Not a difficult concept. Unfortunately, I think simple ideas are not simple enough for you.

[stilldropin20]

hey, you guys remember that time when Obama won the nobel peace prize?

and the USA was actively involved in 2 wars? And unemployments rates were at 17% here at home (a war against our very own poor).

yeah, really. it totally happened. I think Obama was embaressed TBH. yeah he won the prize for "denuking" iran for like a whole 10 years...if that. We were told iran had no nuke program. and he believed them and sent them a bunch of cash. In foreign bills!! Unmarked. On planes, in the middle of the night.

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meanwhile, the awakening continues!!

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also interesting:

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[I_Like_Dirt]

So, single payer isn't a panacea without the accompanying legislation that takes care of the cost drivers.

So much this. Single payer isn't perfect, but given how many countries have tried so many varying alternatives and pretty much every one of them with better outcomes has some intertwining single payer nature to their system, it would take more than private industry studies to convince me that everyone else is wrong. It doesn't mean there isn't room in the system for competition, but there effectively has to be a collective voice for the people.

And it isn't that any single payer is good, either. Single payer for its own sake can be an abject disaster. I still feel like it's a step in the direction of the only possible solution at this point, so I would welcome it on its own if need be to begin with, but it would absolutely need to adapt once in place. It's a tool like any other and needs to be used wisely. As a tool, it's better suited to dealing with some of the bigger cost drivers overall than other tools out there, though using a combination of multiple tools can absolutely work, too. If there isn't any legislation to hit those cost drivers, single payer will die a horrible death, health care in general will continue it's march towards a perk for a privileged few, taxes will get cut as there won't be any need to spend on health care, and the cycle will continue. Spending unwisely winds up in the same ends as effectively abolishing government, given enough time and scale. The only real difference is who gets to spend the money while waiting for things to fall apart.

[stilldropin20]

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something to always remember.

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[closg00]

Re: Trumps “loyal” bodyguard raid to retrieve Trump’s medical records. The bodyguard like Cohen, is the keeper of DJT many secrets. Think that his “loyal” bodyguard didn’t lie his ass off about the Russian prostitutes?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-doc-says-trump-bodyguard-lawyer-raided-his-office-took-n870351

[Wizardspride]

"will the dems just give my money away to Iran and let them build nukes?"

I have STD blocked, but I saw this in a quoted reply, and had to respond. This has to be some of the fakest news I've ever seen on these boards (and there's a lot of it so that's saying something). This statement is such a lie it's disgusting. What's even sadder is that this idiot probably tells this lie to his other idiot friends, and they repeat it.

No, none of YOUR money is going to Iran, S.T.D.

Any money that goes to Iran is THEIR MONEY. Money from their accounts. Money that the U.S. has confiscated. That is the crux of the Iran deal. Iran stops building nukes and the US gives them their money back. Not a difficult concept. Unfortunately, I think simple ideas are not simple enough for you.

I Don't know why but I'll give sd20 the benefit of the doubt.

Rather than call him a liar I'll assume he was just misinformed.

I can't tell you how many conservatives I've had to set straight about this topic.

They had literally NO clue that this money belonged to Iran in the first place.

OR....you could be right and he's just blatantly lying...

[Pointgod]

"will the dems just give my money away to Iran and let them build nukes?"

I have STD blocked, but I saw this in a quoted reply, and had to respond. This has to be some of the fakest news I've ever seen on these boards (and there's a lot of it so that's saying something). This statement is such a lie it's disgusting. What's even sadder is that this idiot probably tells this lie to his other idiot friends, and they repeat it.

No, none of YOUR money is going to Iran, S.T.D.

Any money that goes to Iran is THEIR MONEY. Money from their accounts. Money that the U.S. has confiscated. That is the crux of the Iran deal. Iran stops building nukes and the US gives them their money back. Not a difficult concept. Unfortunately, I think simple ideas are not simple enough for you.

I Don't know why but I'll give sd20 the benefit of the doubt.

Rather than call him a liar I'll assume he was just misinformed.

I can't tell you how many conservatives I've had to set straight about this topic.

They had literally NO clue that this money belonged to Iran in the first place.

OR....you could be right and he's just blatantly lying...

STD doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. He constantly post blatant lies and often misleading information. For someone who was supposedly navel intelligence he's awfully sloppy when it comes to the facts.

[TGW]

STD doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. He constantly post blatant lies and often misleading information. For someone who was supposedly navel intelligence he's awfully sloppy when it comes to the facts.

does this mean he's as smart as belly button lint? if so, I concur

[verbal8]

This stood out to me:

A few questions reveal that Mr. Mueller is still investigating possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. In one of the more tantalizing inquiries, Mr. Mueller asks what Mr. Trump knew about campaign aides, including the former chairman Paul Manafort, seeking assistance from Moscow: “What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?” No such outreach has been revealed publicly.

If Mueller is asking the question, he likely knows the answer or at least the truthful one. It is never possible to guess what Trump will say.