I think the hope of MANY is that it would be similar to the post office in that the government option would be cheaper, but you could elect to go with a private company, you could... and the private sector, at least in theory, would provide better service and more complex coverages. Therefore, the public option wouldn't simply be driving the private companies out of business due to the lack of a profit motive.

It's been awhile since I read up on some of this stuff, but I believe that when the Obamacare debate was going on, the majority of overhead for health insurance companies was advertising costs. If that's the case, a public option could at least theoretically make them compete more with service rather than just advertisements.

Even though I work in insurance, I don't work in anything remotely close to health insurance, and I personally feel like health insurance adds little or no value. It's basically just a middle man that competes for business based on brand recognition/contracts with employers, adds overhead to healthcare, passes the costs onto the consumer, and takes a cut off the top every time. Many would say this stance is hypocritical given my profession, but I only believe that to be true of health insurance - other types of insurance have differentiating factors that health insurance does not.

_________________

My whole point was that the president is more of a figurehead. The real work gets done in congress and when you have to re-elect reps every two years, what do you think they spend their time on? Getting re-elected. These guys need to go to Washington, try to help the country and get back to real life. A guy like Visclosky in NWI has been in congress for decades. He talks about all he has done to help the region but I don't see it. He lives in the Washington bubble and has no clue what is going on. But he's a democrat in a strong democrat area and he enters every election cycle with a multi-million dollar war chest. He's never going to lose.

_________________

Yup. Health "insurance" is just a middle man who is always going to keep premiums higher than payouts (because they are, after all, a for-profit entity) and who allows customers to consume as much of the "product" as they want. Inevitably, premiums always rise.

_________________

I think I remember you debating whether or not he's racist. If I'm wrong I apologize.

_________________

Most members of the House spend 50-60% of their work hours on fundraising. That doesn't leave a lot of time to help constituents. Our campaign finance system needs to be imploded and replaced ASAP.

_________________

Oh, no, he's a fucking racist. He's not even subtle about it.

I think you took issue with me suggesting that Clinton is also a racist and in a worse way to a certain degree because she pretends not to be. Some of the things she allowed her people to do in the primary vs. Obama were shameful. But nothing ever sticks to the Clintons. And they're like Sgt. Schultz, "I know notheeeng!" Just like she doesn't know anything about Creamer agitating crowds in Chicago.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Lol, check out the Podesta emails. She played a role in elevating Trump's candidacy and marginalizing moderates like Bush. She has helped unleash an unprecedented wave of neofascism on the country, and it isn't going away after the November election.

_________________

That's not really new though. The issue is the electorate is more polarized than ever. A president won't win 49 states again anytime soon.

_________________
Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Leash I can't stress this enough- Most health insurers do not actually provide medical coverage. They provide services and network access. I'll give you an example at the bottom of this reply. Health insurers pay out the highest percentage of their premiums as claims relative other lines of insurance. P&C carriers tend to pay about 60-65% of their premium in losses. Health insurers are required by law to pay out 85% for large plans and 80% for small plans. However, most employer provided insurance is self insured.

Cigna provides good disclosure in their annual filings. 83% of their customers are under services contracts only. Only 17% of employers that use Cigna are buying insurance from Cigna. See page 4 of the document. The chart provides a great description of the various plan types.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data ... 3z10-k.htm

_________________
Hawaii (fuck) You

Sorry Hank you got it backwards. The President is now running the country by executive order and through the bureaucracy. Congress is not doing its job. Take Global Warming- The EPA is just using rule making under the Clean Air Act to essentially ban the use of coal. The FCC on Internet regulation. The NLRB and DOL on wage and employment issues. The NSA on spying and security. The Fed on the money supply and interest rates. The SEC on public company regulation. The CFPB on consumer regulation. The Treasury Dept on inversions.

Congress is doing nothing and has very little power. The fight now is between the executive branch and the courts. Look at Obama's "amnesty" for illegal immigrants aka Dreamers. Congress did nothing. It was executive order that the courts have held up.

_________________
Hawaii (fuck) You

Yes, but that is a relatively new occurrence. I don't think Hillary or Donald have the will of the people enough to begin issuing EOs left and right. People hate them enough that we might get our first impeachment that results in expulsion from office. And wouldn't that be awesome. Three presidents impeached in our history and 2 of them being husband and wife. I'd sign up to see that circus.

_________________

That would be funny.

Throughout history, the Executive branch has increasingly grabbed more power. It is a natural consequence of a growing bureaucracy. The FCC used the 1930's telecom law regulating utilities to make its leap on regulating the Internet. The EPA is using the clean air act. My point is they are taking laws that never contemplated global warming or the internet and using them broadly to side step Congress.

Honestly, it is Congress' fault. The body, mainly the Senate, does not function at all. They can't even pass a regular budget. They just pass continuing resolutions.

_________________
Hawaii (fuck) You

Huh? Our political system has been taken over by corporations, resulting in consensus, not polarization, among the two major parties. American politics is defined by neoliberal economic policy and militaristic foreign policy, neither of which is challenged by Republican or Democratic leaders. Polarization is an illusion produced by relentless focus on disagreement about issues that have little or no relevance to the social and economic system that dominates everyday life. Political debate in America amounts to little more than arguing over how to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

_________________

Yeah, they're basically TPA's or brokerages.

But even if they did retain the risk themselves, don't you agree they would add very little value? As we discussed, the consumer just gets a buffet of unlimited services, and the TPA's/insurers have no incentive to really monitor it. They also have no way of differentiating the premiums, so their underwriting is of little value. It'd be like everyone paying $1,000 a year for their home insurance, whether they were insured for $50,000 or $50 million. They really add nothing other than more cost in an already costly process.

_________________

Yep, this is also why I chuckle about the moronic Broder-Friedman desire for bipartisan consensus persisting still to this day among so many pundits and media members. It's only a matter of one or two more presidential election cycles before Yglesias and Klein start clamoring for Michael Bloomberg to save us all, despite initially making their names mocking that very kind of hackery.

Democrats have decided it's okay to get their shit rocked in the statehouses and Congress as long as they have the top. It's okay if all these ALEC creeps try to pass laws that say you can't breathe oxygen if you don't have a dick because Yaas Queen and Notorious RBG will get us out of it! Until they can't, of course. Then what.


Corporate-government fusion with a polite smile? ho ho, huge if true!

_________________

Tall Midget you have spent the better part of a year painting Hillary Clinton as an incompetent politician and candidate. Now you are suggesting that she had both the brains and Machiavellian like cunning necessary to influence the Republican primaries. Who are you crappin?

_________________

That is not entirely true. I am thoroughly convinced that there would not have been an Iraq War if AL Gore had been elected. If that is the case where is the consensus with which you speak?

_________________

This is a red herring. The issue of U.S. militarism is far more sweeping than an isolated vote regarding a single intervention. Within American politics, there is no substantive debate about the role of the U.S. military in the world, the size of the U.S. military, or the value of being the world's only "superpower." That's because the military-industrial complex defines the acceptable limits of political discourse regarding the U.S. military. Dozens of books have been written on this subjecty, but I'd start with Chalmers Johnson's Blowback trilogy and Sheldon Wolin's Democracy, Inc.

That said, it seems worth noting that a majority of Senate Democrats voted to authorize the Iraq war while 35-40% of House Democrats voted to do so.

_________________

Gore supported regime change in Iraq and additionally would've surrounded himself with the same neocons who are part of the Washington consensus on foreign policy. The notion that he would've definitely stayed out is a fiction created by ride or die Democrats to continue their neverending battle with Nader voters and to help quash criticism from the left of any Democratic presidential candidate because every election is The Most Important One Ever.

DEMOCRAT MATH
Voting for Jill Stein = voting for Donald Trump
Donating to Donald Trump because someone blew up a couch = voting for Hillary Clinton

_________________

I am opening myself up to criticism on this but I completely agree. Some will say it would not be a problem if the president doing it were of my party or doing things I like but that isn't true. It has been going on for a while and there seems to be no stopping it. It is why you also get people supporting candidates more than they normally would like to. It is the Supreme Court and judicial appointments in general. This election is probably very important to people that need the courts for their issues.

_________________
Elections have consequences.

He never would have placed an emphasis on Iraq in the first place. The Nader stuff bears no relation to that. He would never have invaded Iraq in the first place.

_________________

Gore was still mad we left Iraq as quickly as we did in 1991. Any criticism he made of Bush at the time was purely procedural, but he made it quite clear he was on board with the removal of Hussein and the threat of WMDs. His Vice-President was the biggest sitting Democratic hawk and his advisers would've been the same neocons who urged the Democrats in Congress, such as Hillary, to support the war. You've merely asserted a counterfactual with zero supporting evidence. "Al Gore wouldn't have invaded Iraq because I don't think he'd have invaded Iraq" is not a particularly compelling argument.

I agree with you about the role of the military in American politics. There is really no difference between the Dems. And Republicans when it comes to philosophy. Each side wants a strong military. Each side also promotes the belief that American might should be felt globally.

It is not just politicians that promote this though. American citizenry does also. For all of the talk about opposition to things like Vietnam and Iraq the majority of the American public were in favor of those wars at the time they were fought.

The Americans public also believe in the omnipotence of American might also. This makes it easier for politicos to engage in policies that may appear to be suspect after further review.

_________________

Here is" compelling evidence".

https://www2.gwu.edu/~action/2004/gore/ ... 302sp.html

_________________

Yes, that's the speech where he makes minor procedural criticisms of Bush's rhetoric and the need for a new doctrine (since the administration he was part of had already bombed Iraq before without needing a new doctrine!) but still clearly regards the threat as real and action as necessary. He wishes the war resolution was more narrow and that there was more international support but the wisdom of the invasion itself is never challenged, only the manner Bush was going about it.

This was one thing HW Bush fully understood and gained from his previous experience. He knew the approval of the American public has a shelf life. That is why when he took on Iraq from Kuwait he invented the whole coalition requirement. It is also why he only went so far and didn't listen to Schwarzkopf and Powell to go all the way to Baghdad. Get in do things and get the hell out.

_________________
Elections have consequences.

He could be in favor of regime change yet disagree about the role played by the U.S. with respect to bringing about said change. Gore clearly lays out why he wasn't in favor of removing Saddam. The Iraq war was very much Bush's war and his alone.

_________________

No, he still preserves the right for the US to take unilateral action, he just wishes they'd try harder to get a broader coalition/Security Council support first. Regardless, differences in procedures of invasion is a wholly and totally different debate than one over the claim that "there would not have been an Iraq War. if Al Gore had been elected" He supported a war, just wanted it to be a different kind.