Bernie Sanders 2016 Feel the Bern!

Burlington, VT population is 42K. The US is 370 Mil. Talk about scalability issues.

I've been to Burlington. It's a nice place but it is not comparable to the rest of the US anymore than my company is comparable to a Fortune 500 company.

 

All valuations are relative. People complain that taxes make them poorer but there is no way other than just guessing as to what your quality of life would be without them or with more i.e. would you have a higher net quality of life if you paid no taxes but paid tolls on every road you drive on? Or what would be your quality of life if there were no social safety net, maybe the homeless, infirmed and elderly were just lying around on the streets dying, how rich would you be if there were no police or court system and you had to protect anything you own with paid security?

It's a really big question with no answer. But it appears from evidence that for a lot of things, collective effort, socialism provides more than it costs.

-carry on-

 

Overall a good post and agree with a lot of your points. To me there are three critical flaws to the Sanders proposal:
1. How does he win over a firmly entrenched opposition party or for that matter skeptical members of the Democrats? Much of the problems with getting ACA passed wasn't just Republicans but wrangling together all the Democrats. Sanders probably isn't going to have a supermajority of Dems to begin with so will need to at least a few Republicans.

2. Besides just passing his health care proposal how it is paid for through new taxes is probably more polarizing than the proposal itself. If the proposal itself passes without the tax reform that he is proposing the program will be unsustainable.

3. How does a revolutionary change in providing health care affect the economy and the society? As noted the health care sector is 17% of the economy and the insurance industry is also a major part of that. A sudden disruption in that will have other repercussions that might present other problems.

 

You are missing the point, incremental changes like Obama care is better than no change at all (Hillary care). Hillary will move the needle more than Sanders will.

 

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So this is not an expert opinion?

 

Obamacare was not an incremental change. It was a massive overhaul that once could possibly achieve. The insurance companies simply will not give in to a single payer system. Giving more power to the insurance companies was not a positive step, regardless how you want to spin it. The only caveat is if Obama was intentionally building a system to fail, which is criminal in itself.(not that I disagree). Obama does not have that much fore sight.

I understand Bernie will not sweep in a single payer system. My confidence in Bernie is he will not fall prey to his own ego and expand power to a system that is already extremely difficult to remove.

If you really think Hillary will move anything of significance, you are completely wrong. She will never go against the establishment.

 

I was actually very critical of Obama back in 2008 for the same reason.

Yes Canada isn't the scale of the US. Its population is only a third the size of the UK which is only about a quarter the size of the US. Germany is less than the population of the UK. On Medicare there are 49Mil beneficiaries. The population of the US 370 mil. so that would mean extending Medicare to 7.5 times the population it is serving now.

I don't know what sort of project management experience you have but any one with basic experience would understand that you can't just take something that applies to a small group and just make it larger. That would be like saying since I know how to build a house I can use the same design to build a stadium since all I'm doing is sheltering more people.

Then again not surprising since you think Burlington, VT is the comparable to the US as a whole.

 

I am very surprised you are a Sander supporter, when did you drop the elephant party?

 

I will admit I'm not an expert on health care issues but I have dealt very often with scalability issues in architecture, construction and housing and transit policy.

As I said to Glynch it's basic project management knowledge that you can't just take something that works for a small group and just scale it up to work for a much larger group. As larger and larger populations are introduced more resources have to be devoted to management and record keeping. The population becomes more diverse introducing other factors and you run up to problems of diminishing returns.

 

Except that is the whole basis of Sanders' campaign and support. If Sanders isn't actually going to make sweeping changes what is the point of voting for him?

I don't expect Clinton to make sweeping changes. I have no illusions she will be able to win over a lot of Republican support. What she will probably be able to do more is win over or strong arm reluctant Democrats. Her proposals will not polarize Congress as much as the revolution Sanders wants. Yes it will be incremental but it took more than 40 years for major health care reform to pass and opposition remains very firm. It's going to take gradual change, a lot of horse trading and inside politics for the next step of change.

 

Same here and just want to get more informed about this scalability issue. For my experience, the biggest issue is resource when you scale something up. Management is second.

US is indeed much larger than the other countries but we currently have a larger work force, infrastructure, etc that can provide this service. We have more doctors, nurses, hospitals, etc compared to others and it is not even close. The ratio of health care professionals to US population is the same with other countries who provide UHS.

For the sake of discussion, if we were to put aside the management, paperwork and all the red tape that goes with a hug implementationj and just say, anybody can go to an hospital or clinic for free, will there be enough resources? I would like to think we do .

 

I hope you post this same Vine, without commentary, in the Trump thread because it has an equal chance of being Pop's reaction to Trump.

Schrödinger's political pissing match demands a fair play.

 

I'm not voting for him over Clinton, but I can see why someone would even if they know Sander's policies have no chance.

They could view Clinton as a DINO, or they are anti-Clinton.

They could see Bernie as capable of getting more done. Just because his ideas doesn't have a chance, doesn't mean he will do less. He might start to the very left, but as long as he's flexible enough to compromise, he can get things done. Whether he or Clinton gets more done has more to do with their capabilities to persuade and govern, than their initial "negotiating" positions if you will. Remember one of the complaint among many progressive on Obama is he started his negotiation position too far to the right.

The reason I wouldn't choose him over Clinton is the risks of losing the WH is too big when the GOP already have the House and Senate, and I believe Bernie will have a lower chance of winning vs Clinton. But who knows.

 

It won't matter. The system is rigged against Sanders. See "super delegates."

Super Delegates, Electoral College, Super PAC's the entire system is rigged. Our government is not For the People, it's For the Corporations.

I'm disgusted with the whole thing.

 

Sometime it's hard to complain about it's not for the people, when the people aren't that interested (voter turnout)

 

Will Pop run next time? :grin:

 

For those wanting to hear the audio of Pop. The full video is here.
http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=10300301&postcount=554