17 thoughts on “Lest we forget what’s at stake Tuesday”
Imagine…that Trump does what he says he wants to do on taxes, the environment, immigration, and health care. It’s true that he is not a passionate policy wonk; nor does he seem like someone who is deeply invested, on a personal level, in the non-immigration aspects of his policy agenda. But the agenda is there, and on all these non-immigration issues his views are basically in line with the vision put forth by Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who will do the boring work of drafting the bills for Trump to sign.
The result would be a sweeping transformation of American life. Millions would be forcibly removed from their homes and communities as new resources and a new mission invigorate the pace of deportations. Taxes would drop sharply for the richest Americans while rising for many middle-class families. Millions of low-income Americans would lose their health insurance, while America’s banks would enjoy the repeal of regulations enacted in the wake of the financial crisis. Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gas emissions would end, likely collapsing global efforts to restrain emissions, greatly increasing the pace of warming.
I was listening to NPR in the car just now, they were discussing, in the blandest terms, a comparison of Clinton's proposals for healthcare vs. Trump's proposals for healthcare. The two people talking presented it all in the most civil, neutral and pleasant tones, lending, I thought, a false sense of equivalency to two radically different ideas, and one being dangerous.
Trump's plan would roll back the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which means that millions of poor Americans now receiving healthcare would no longer have access. The commentators talked about how Trump proposes that people be allowed to have "Health Savings Accounts" to pay for health insurance with pre-tax dollars. Well first of all, HSAs already exist, secondly, only a small amount of people would have the extra funds to set aside to afford them and to afford medical insurance on their own anyway, and thirdly, he's basically saying that Americans would be SOL, have to pay for their healthcare on their own.
Meanwhile, Clinton plans to make Medicare available to people age 55 and older and also plans to add a public option to Obamacare – the beginning of Medicare for all.
To treat these two ideas as equal choices is, in my opinion, incredibly irresponsible journalism. Shame on NPR. If people decide to vote Trump based on this sort of reporting from NPR, then I think NPR should be held to account.
Yes, | I heard the same bit | on my Eastern Daylight Time ride home and, ruefully, noticed the same false equivalency. You had to be listening hard, all the way to the end, to hear Trump's plan would certainly kick a lot of people off their health care, as many as 400,000. Not even considering the effect that RW gem of "selling Insurance across State lines" would have on the quality of insurance plans ( can you say "race to the bottom"? You think companies incorporate in Delaware for the beaches?) .
Hill's plan will add people to the rolls and have a debatable effect on the National Debt (if we're even worrying about that now).
Not surprised. Media – and most especially Public media – has been so assailed, battered, threatened and screamed at by the Right for so many years they run towards, equivalency as a safe harbor every time. Stockholm Syndrome.
Imma write a nasty note anyway. It's past time folks like us did some yelling, too.
Good for you. I never write nasty notes to media and I maybe should.
Yes, the across state lines thing – it actually would never be able to happen without a whole heck of a lot of changes in laws in each state, since insurance is mostly regulated at the state level. But if it were to happen, it would be chaos and would shorten people's lives, put people in debt, leave people susceptible to fly-by-night operations. Even the giant insurance companies now, the ones that cover most people, they always try to raise rates, merge, just do stuff that benefits their shareholders in the name of profit rather than in the interests of patients, and there's only a handful of state attorneys general that are really doing anything substantial to fight back.
I usually just yell into the telephone, but a letter has a much bigger impact.
Yeah the whole "insurance across state lines" thing is elegant in concept, easy to collapse into soundbites and fits neatly into the free-market Chicago economic theory that late modern Conservatives get the warm fuzzies over. Just like Communism, it's a disaster when applied in the real world. Kansas, case in point.
This creaking Conservative Movement can't be tossed into the dustbin of history, with all the other failed social experiments, soon enough for me.
| This list of current polls | may cheer you somewhat, though I really do agree we're in for a hard landing. Fasten your seat belt.
Anthem gobbles up local insurance companies all across US America. The idea that allowing companies to sell in any state (which they can do now anyway) would reduce premiums is utter BS. We'd wind up with "single-payer" all right, and we'd all pay Anthem whatever they felt they wanted to charge.
I think it is highly doubtful that he will win, but it's the margin and the down-ballot races that I'm concerned about. I want to see the GOP as roundly defeated as possible for obvious reasons.
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/RP12Sjf.jpg" />
I was listening to NPR in the car just now, they were discussing, in the blandest terms, a comparison of Clinton's proposals for healthcare vs. Trump's proposals for healthcare. The two people talking presented it all in the most civil, neutral and pleasant tones, lending, I thought, a false sense of equivalency to two radically different ideas, and one being dangerous.
Trump's plan would roll back the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which means that millions of poor Americans now receiving healthcare would no longer have access. The commentators talked about how Trump proposes that people be allowed to have "Health Savings Accounts" to pay for health insurance with pre-tax dollars. Well first of all, HSAs already exist, secondly, only a small amount of people would have the extra funds to set aside to afford them and to afford medical insurance on their own anyway, and thirdly, he's basically saying that Americans would be SOL, have to pay for their healthcare on their own.
Meanwhile, Clinton plans to make Medicare available to people age 55 and older and also plans to add a public option to Obamacare – the beginning of Medicare for all.
To treat these two ideas as equal choices is, in my opinion, incredibly irresponsible journalism. Shame on NPR. If people decide to vote Trump based on this sort of reporting from NPR, then I think NPR should be held to account.
Yes, | I heard the same bit | on my Eastern Daylight Time ride home and, ruefully, noticed the same false equivalency. You had to be listening hard, all the way to the end, to hear Trump's plan would certainly kick a lot of people off their health care, as many as 400,000. Not even considering the effect that RW gem of "selling Insurance across State lines" would have on the quality of insurance plans ( can you say "race to the bottom"? You think companies incorporate in Delaware for the beaches?) .
Hill's plan will add people to the rolls and have a debatable effect on the National Debt (if we're even worrying about that now).
Not surprised. Media – and most especially Public media – has been so assailed, battered, threatened and screamed at by the Right for so many years they run towards, equivalency as a safe harbor every time. Stockholm Syndrome.
Imma write a nasty note anyway. It's past time folks like us did some yelling, too.
Good for you. I never write nasty notes to media and I maybe should.
Yes, the across state lines thing – it actually would never be able to happen without a whole heck of a lot of changes in laws in each state, since insurance is mostly regulated at the state level. But if it were to happen, it would be chaos and would shorten people's lives, put people in debt, leave people susceptible to fly-by-night operations. Even the giant insurance companies now, the ones that cover most people, they always try to raise rates, merge, just do stuff that benefits their shareholders in the name of profit rather than in the interests of patients, and there's only a handful of state attorneys general that are really doing anything substantial to fight back.
It is essential that Trump not win next Tuesday.
I usually just yell into the telephone, but a letter has a much bigger impact.
Yeah the whole "insurance across state lines" thing is elegant in concept, easy to collapse into soundbites and fits neatly into the free-market Chicago economic theory that late modern Conservatives get the warm fuzzies over. Just like Communism, it's a disaster when applied in the real world. Kansas, case in point.
This creaking Conservative Movement can't be tossed into the dustbin of history, with all the other failed social experiments, soon enough for me.
| This list of current polls | may cheer you somewhat, though I really do agree we're in for a hard landing. Fasten your seat belt.
Anthem gobbles up local insurance companies all across US America. The idea that allowing companies to sell in any state (which they can do now anyway) would reduce premiums is utter BS. We'd wind up with "single-payer" all right, and we'd all pay Anthem whatever they felt they wanted to charge.
They bought mine, just the same way Wells Fargo bought my mortgage. At least my mortgage is fixed, and they can't jack it up as long as I pay on time.
Also too, why why why is Bruce Willis a republican? That is just so wrong.
It's hard to understand why an actor with such personal appeal could be such an asshole, but there it is.
Here's hoping we don't end up live-blogging the end of America Tuesday night.
<img src="https://lordsofthedrinks.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/jug-of-beer1.jpg" width="400" height="400">
Yes.
<img src="https://24.media.tumblr.com/a3e1172320c37e5edbf036b2728b86fc/tumblr_myphh3u63F1qedb29o1_500.gif"/>
<img src="https://media3.giphy.com/media/1238IcqdzT5qTu/200.gif#33" />
Those of us who attended the Agricultural Training Institute in West Lafayette Indiana refer to that combination as a "Boilermaker."
I think it is highly doubtful that he will win, but it's the margin and the down-ballot races that I'm concerned about. I want to see the GOP as roundly defeated as possible for obvious reasons.
It's got to happen sometime. Why not now?
It would save a lot of time, money – and lives.