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[Dunamisdeos]

I mean, yes McCarthyism did happen, and lots of people were attacked by him and his associates for being against his fascist methods of doing things.

My point is only that the term presented appears unassociated by all available evidence, including that provided in it's favor. That doesn't mean McCarthy and his ilk didn't use blatant fascist tactics to bludgeon his opponents or dissidents into submission. He did do that.

[smjjames]

Yeah, it just begs the question of "What's the difference between the two in regards to healthcare?" since Federalism is a common center with distribution at lower levels and I have no idea what he means by a federalized healthcare.

It's pretty obvious that he's throwing red meat to Republicans because socialism is still a massive dogwhistle.

Looking at the summaries of the proposed bill, I'd assume Federalised here is referring to removing the country-wide regulations imposed by Medicare that actually keeps health care usable (like the regulations preventing them from charging more for prior conditions). Because regulations are socialism and socialism is evil, herp-de-derp.

You know, wasn't the situation pre-ACA more or less federalized healthcare? I get having states take some control of finances which seems like lt might be a good idea and a bad idea at the same time. Good because states can tailor things to their needs and economy rather than some sort of flat rate that would be not enough for some states and more than needed for others and bad because politicians and budgets.

Would be nice if they had an actual vision for how they might do single payer (Graham seemed to imply that it was inevitable) instead of "Lets throw things back to where they were before ACA!". I can see how having a more decentralized single payer model seems attractive due to our size in both landmass and population. However, since there isn't anybody else with similar population and landmass (Canada and Russia are similar in landmass though) that has single payer healthcare or universial healthcare or whatever you want to call it, we have to find our own path.

[Dunamisdeos]

The new healthcare has affected my family both well and very poorly. My parents went from having their own insurance to having to depend on a government stipend to have any insurance at all and losing their family doctor. They are now in debt because my father has gone through events that would have been covered by their pre-ACA insurance that are less covered now.

However, we did get more assistance than we would have with my wife's pregnancy because of ACA. I have a poor view of the ACA though because overall it has been a poor experience for my family. For us, a rollback to pre-ACA would actually benefit.

[smjjames]

That's the problem with ACA and pre-ACA, a lot of people benefited and a lot of people lost in both cases. It's going to be hard to make both sides happy in any new reform.

It's like the politicians are only listening to cherrypicked voices and complaints instead of all of them, and aren't thinking of how to accommodate those.

[Frumple]

... well, no, not really balanced like that. Some people have been somewhat more fucked than they would have been pre-ACA, maybe (because it's not quite that easy to say if they wouldn't still have been if things had remained on the course it was taking, or precisely blame the ACA for insurance companies and/or gov't/conservative powers being massive shits about things), but since has been a pretty fucking huge shift from fucked to at-least-less-fucked. Our healthcare system before the ACA was bad enough the ACA is an improvement.

Personal anecdotes can get stuffed, I've been worse off myself after because the conservative politicians in florida are fucking bastards, none of that changes the flat fact the damned thing has been a significant improvement on the net, or that things were bad enough that even with the ACA being constantly and intentionally sabotaged it's still churning out better results. Stateside healthcare still isn't good by a long damn shot, but a couple decades ago it was a friggin' farce.

In any case, what the hell is even going on with this grahm-cassidy nonsense? Senate GOP seems to be trying to be even more craven scumshit than they were with the last attempt, which would almost be impressive if it wasn't an ethical and political failure of unusually large degree.

For some goddamn reason the thing seems to be slated to be seen before the homeland bloody security committee -- which has had precisely zero hearings on healthcare in its history -- and as near as I've noticed since noticing that ruddy nothing else. Buncha' other crap going on I can't be arsed to link to, too. This point I'm half considering actually calling the R senator in florida and asking what the blue hell they think they're doing. Normally doesn't seem like much of a point considering who they are, but seriously, what the hell.

[Cheeetar]

etc

Does being a master of polite dialogue with nazis mean pretending that you being wrong about what I said never happened? At least apologise.

[smjjames]

They're trying to jam in some sort of repeal before the reconcillation stuff, which allows them to do 51 votes instead of 60, times out on the 30th. That's what the Graham-Cassidy nonsense looks like.

They're also getting a lot of pushback from governors because a lot of them get shafted.

I know it's not the normal way we do legislation, but maybe when we do healthcare reform for reals, we have the input of governors? They're starting to become a real force in the healthcare discussion, I don't recall them having this much of a presence during the setting up of ACA. I mean yeah, a lot of Republican governors complained when ACA got put in place, but I don't remember them having this much involvement in the discussion. At least not as overtly as they are now.

[Lord Shonus]

The new healthcare has affected my family both well and very poorly. My parents went from having their own insurance to having to depend on a government stipend to have any insurance at all and losing their family doctor. They are now in debt because my father has gone through events that would have been covered by their pre-ACA insurance that are less covered now.

However, we did get more assistance than we would have with my wife's pregnancy because of ACA. I have a poor view of the ACA though because overall it has been a poor experience for my family. For us, a rollback to pre-ACA would actually benefit.

Two things you need to ponder here.

1.) How often did you actually USE your insurance? The vast majority of people who "lost" insurance when ACA went through only had insurance in the sense that they spent a significant amount of money every month and got a small card in exchange. Trying to use it for anything much more than a routine physical would get nothing more than "We do not cover that, as explained in this section of fine print", or "This medical problem must be a preexisting condition, and your insurance is revoked because you did not disclose it." Having those go away under ACA was a design feature, as cutting those scamming shits out of the system was one of the biggest goals.

2.) Of the people who did lose useful plans after ACA, the cause was usually an insurer backing out of the marketplace because GOP sabotage of the system made it a poor investment, not due to any provision of the ACA. Of course, the insurance companies spend billions of dollars telling those affected that it was all Obama's fault.

[Max™]

This whole "To punch nazis or not to punch nazis" discussion really need it's own thread guys..... Sure, it's politics and has relevance in relation to neonazis in America, but the discussion is extremely circular right now.

I feel ya, but I gotta respond to this because dude nailed it but I'll spoiler it because it needs it's own thread, but again, well done Harry, errr, 30 points to Gryffindor:

I think nobody is trying to convince Nazis not to be Nazis by punching them, the point of that is to reinforce that being a Nazi is a punchable offense on a person-to-person level without involving the law. The specific intention is to prevent people from having the gall to turn up in public and do Nazi shit rather than convince them not to be such Nazis in the first place, thus attempting to prevent the normalization of Nazism that we're currently experiencing. The same normalization that the "we should have a proper dialogue and debate these Nazi beliefs, hear out both sides" mindset furthers, in fact. The problem is that a core part of being a proper Nazi ideologue is not actually believing in either debate or words, but instead malignantly exploiting coded language, pedantry and bad faith arguments to further a far-right agenda within a society poorly inoculated against such influences. The immediate goal is making Nazism a topic of discussion to begin with, which a flat "Nazis fuck off", a more radical "Nazis get punched" or the outright German "Nazi regalia is fucking illegal" policy is intended to work against.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's for similar reasons that leftists call so many disparate people Nazis or Nazi allies - by using their particular brands of pedantry, slanted even-handedness, rhetorical traps and conversation shifts to the generally uncontroversial "assault is illegal" policy they're furthering that same agenda, and whether this happens unwittingly or otherwise often gets pretty fuzzy. That there are terribly few rhetorically effective leftists around to correctly elaborate the position (I'm definitely not one of them) and call people out for spreading covert Nazi bullshit only makes the problem worse.

I dunno man, you did a pretty fucking good job elaborating it just now.

Most of these kids have been sitting around in echo chambers letting their angsty white boy farts circulate until they end up going down one of two main paths:

The Horrified Moment of Enlightenment--where they wake up and notice they're sitting in a room full of fuckboys talking about how great their shit smells and leave or possibly try to help some of their buddies get out of the nazishit smog rooms--hurray, they figured out a thing they were doing was really fucking shitty and knocked it off. Sometimes these moments are brought about by dudebro who goes around talking to racists and getting them to chill, and that is fan-fucking-tastic but shit don't work out like that very much, so we come to...

The Dumbfuck Internet Tough Guy Turned Actual!Nazi Moment--wherein they gear up, go out with some of their shitsucking compatriots, and start talking shit while relying on societal norms to keep them from having to face some of the consequences that someone openly rallying in pursuit of nazi goals might face--of which being punched is by far more pleasant than pretty much the entire rest of the list of shit which the world has united in the past to do to nazis. Is it likely that popping them in the nose is going to be very effective at getting them to reconsider their shitty fucking thinking? Fuck no, but it might just make the next dipshit jacking off in their own corner of the nazifuckboyforums wuss out before heading out to toss slurs at innocent bystanders and whatnot.

Me, my skin is light enough that I've had cops pull me over for a busted headlight and when I explained that I didn't have my wallet because we were picking up a prescription which the lil lady in the passenger seat needed filled asap so I just grabbed the keys without even getting out of my pajama pants, they told me to be careful and get the headlight fixed and that was the end of it. So I figure hey, if I can make use of that sort of leeway which is just arbitrarily given to me by impolitely discouraging nazi fuckboys from harrassing some guy or gal because they happen to be a little too dark, it's all good, and hey, a night in jail plus a court date with a good lawyer at your side when you're actually standing there saying "well your honor, the guy insisted he was a nazi and I'd hate to disappoint my grandfather, sir" makes a better story later on than "I wanted to punch him but I just yelled until I got hoarse and dunno where they went when I got back from getting a soda" would, yeah?

[Frumple]

I know it's not the normal way we do legislation, but maybe when we do healthcare reform for reals, we have the input of governors? They're starting to become a real force in the healthcare discussion, I don't recall them having this much of a presence during the setting up of ACA.

It's... way beyond not being normal. But sure, governor input would be good, even though that's kinda' part of what the senate and house is supposed to be there to do. Pretty sure it was a thing when the ACA was being drafted up, but unlike this current steaming pile of horseshit, that took many months and a great deal of publicity and people being able to see what the hell was going to go into the bill, with all that entails.

What input was there was spread out over a (much, much) longer period and was able to take more forms (like them actually having time to figure out what the hell is going on, talk to their state's citizens and representatives, pass input along through those means, etc.)... basically harder to notice in comparison largely because they're now more concentrated and less filtered through other actors, since the GOP is apparently intent of making it so there's no goddamn other way to get involved, taking a(n even more) huge piss all over our legislative process while they do it.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Oh, and since it's happening I suppose I should formally note:

Trumpcare Mk. VIII - "Trumpcare (2017)"

[misko27]

That's the problem with ACA and pre-ACA healthcare

This was repeated ad nauseam during the healthcare debate, but somehow it has still not been said enough: Every healthcare plan has winners and losers. Pre-ACA has winners and losers. ACA has winners and losers. Single-payer will have winners and losers. Republi-don't-care will have winners and losers. I remember back when Obamacare survived its (first) Supreme Court visit, shares in hospitals went up while shares in insurance companies fell.

Someone is going to get the shaft. That is not an avoidable situation. But that, of course, doesn't mean that more people get the shaft in some systems than in other systems.

They're trying to jam in some sort of repeal before the reconcillation stuff, which allows them to do 51 votes instead of 60, times out on the 30th. That's what the Graham-Cassidy nonsense looks like.

They're also getting a lot of pushback from governors because a lot of them get shafted.

Republicans claim that they are on the verge of 50 votes. In a sense, I don't necessarily doubt them, but then again anyone who has been following this thread during the summer should know that "On the verge of 50 votes" is all the difference in the world away from "actually 50 votes." If you're thinking "hmm, I seem to remember hearing that phrase before," its because you have.

I think Republicans got so good at building up a sense of momentum and inevitability that they started believing in it themselves and forgetting that the reason they were building up momentum is because "momentum" was all they had going for them.

Oh, and since it's happening I suppose I should formally note:

Trumpcare Mk. VIII - "Trumpcare (2017)"

At least someone is keeping score, because I've sure as hell lost track.

[Aklyon]

If we replaced this sham bill with a dead horse it'd actually get more done, wouldn't it.

[EnigmaticHat]

This honestly feels like a temper tantrum after Trump crossed party lines with the debt ceiling.  A pure repeal is bad, but a pure repeal now could mean that the next signup period never happens; Obamacare is just *poof*.  That's bad for anyone.  The insurance companies would be thrown into an unexpected transitional period, while private citizens would have ample time to realize they don't have healthcare but not enough time to forget before 2018.  Burn it all indeed.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It could be the other way around, if we're believing Trump has enough strategy in his mind to attempt such a thing. It fits surprisingly well. Republicans fail to obey Trump's agenda, Trump inflicts shitstorm with DACA and the debt ceiling, then he puts another copy of the healthcare bill back in play and asks them if they've had a change of heart.

Of course, unlike his usual suspects Trump can't have the mob kill Congress if they refuse again, so these kinds of intimidation tactics are limited.