Is Donald Trump a blowhard? You bet. A demagogue? Maybe. A plausible President of the United States? Gosh, I sure don’t think so.
And yet, it must be noted that his positions on some important issues are actually to the left of the rest of the GOP field. For example, on abortion rights:
Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he is pro-life, but also supports exceptions to bans on abortion in cases of rape and incest, as well as in cases that would save the life of the mother.
CNN’s “New Day” so-host Chris Cuomo asked Trump if he agreed with Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) stance against exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
“I disagree with that. I am for the exceptions,” Trump responded. “And so was Ronald Reagan for the exceptions, by the way. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Rubio’s stance is shared by most of the rest of the GOP field.
What about defunding Planned Parenthood? Trump doesn’t like Planned Parenthood … and yet,
“If the time came, I would look at the individual things that they do and maybe some of the things are good, and maybe — I know a lot of the things are bad,” Trump said. “I would look at the good aspects of it and I would also look because I’m sure they do some things properly and good and good for women.”
That stance is clearly left of every other Republican running. And then there’s health care. From the debate:
we have to take care of the people that can’t take care of themselves. And I will do that through a different system [than Obamacare].
OK, so he doesn’t like Obamacare; that’s par for the GOP course. But wait – he thinks government should look out for at least some people? That sounds something like Medicare/Medicaid, and it’s got some conservatives pretty upset.
And speaking of health care, no less of a credentialed lefty than Matt Yglesias had this to say about Trump’s debate performance:
Donald Trump offered the single best, most original policy idea in the Republican Party debate Thursday night. He also demonstrated by far the greatest understanding of a complicated area of public policy. There, I said it….
[W]hile I wouldn’t rank Trump as one of the great health wonks of all time, his answer to a question challenging him to defend his past praise of single-payer health-care systems demonstrated a decent knowledge of the subject and an innovative and important health-care idea….
Trump then pivoted from [his non-insane explanation of why single-payer wouldn’t work here] to a constructive suggestion about reforming health insurance in America, proposing a change that, while big enough to make a difference, is sufficiently non-revolutionary to be plausible.
“What I’d like to see,” he said, “is a private system without the artificial lines around every state.”
Right now, you see, health insurance is a heavily regulated industry. And it’s regulated in slightly different ways by each state government. Consequently, while buyers and sellers of most products (breakfast cereal, cars, appliances, clothing) have one gigantic marketplace to participate in, buyers and sellers of health insurance have a handful of midsize markets (California, Texas, New York) and a few dozen small ones.
“I have a big company with thousands and thousands of employees,” Trump observed, but “if I’m negotiating in New York or in New Jersey or in California, I have, like, one bidder. Nobody can bid.”
One bidder is an exaggeration, but it’s true that the number of players in any given state market tends to be small, and the problem is getting worse. The issue is especially severe in smaller states, where the overall size of the market isn’t necessarily big enough to make it worth anyone’s while to enter. But it’s also a logistical hassle for employers who operate in multiple states, especially because states aren’t real economic units. Lots of people live in New Jersey and work in Pennsylvania, or commute from Kansas to Missouri.
So, scoff all you want at Trump’s antics. I sure do. But while you scoff, bear in mind that when it comes to policy, he might actually be better than the rest of them. That should terrify all of us.
I don’t have any faith that a President Trump’s policies would look like what he’s saying today than I do they’d look like what he said when he was a liberal several years ago. That’s because I’m not sure Trump has principles, other than “getting things done”. And principles make it hard to get that thing done — whether a sale or a purchase, a “deal”or a merger. If there were Democrats controlling Congress, he’d be liberal so he could talk about getting stuff done. Republicans, he’d be a conservative.
This whole candidacy is fascinating, and I’ve drafted and deleted a couple posts about it. Basically, Trump is trying to turn this into a referendum on the system rather than a vote for a candidate. He won’t be successful, but he’s getting traction by doing it.
But it would be terrifying to be governed under.
He can’t be elected. But he is effectively becoming kingmaker in this election.
A Trump 3rd party run would give the election to Hillary, a Trump fold may give it to someone else.
It’s all about leverage, to quote The Donald. Maybe even more than about winning. I’m sure he’s thinking pretty hard right now on how to monetize that leverage.
In the summer 1980, I was foolish enough to welcome Ronald Reagan’s ascendancy in the GOP primary field. He was so flagrantly incompetent, so clearly a right-wing extremist, and so transparently empty of self-generated ideation, that viewed I him as an easy knock-off for Jimmy Carter. I can’t remember another time that have been so dreadfully mistaken.
This campaign reminds of that summer. The fact that Donald Trump is treated as anything other than the circus sideshow that he is revolts and terrifies me.
I fear that American electorate is dumb enough, crazy enough, and suffering enough to vote for just about anybody — including Donald Trump.
Unlikely that important figures in the Democratic Party are going to kneecap HRC they way they did Carter. Carter had a poor hand to play, because of self-inflicted wounds and because of circumstances beyond his control, but Kennedy killed him. Put another way, Kennedy MADE Reagan.
Reagan had a long experience as a politician. Trump does not. Reagan also did not make enemies of members of his own party.
I think the idea of reducing state-specific regulation around health care would reduce costs. But, it would also reduce quality of care. Why? Because, when push comes to shove, the “state’s rights” states would elminate liberal states’ ability to require higher standards out of insurance companies. Instead, we’d see a race to the bottom, where our minimum level of service would be something much closer to the least-regulated state, not the most-regulated.
I’m not arguing that more regulations are better, but I am arguing that I don’t want Massachusetts’ citizens beholden to politicians from states who have remarkably poor health care options or results.
I’m afraid that eliminating state-level insurance regulations in the name of cost reduction would also result in quality of care reduction, especially for the working poor. That’s not a trade-off I favor.
As usual, Trump is looking only through his narrow perspective – dealing with employee insurance across multiple state lines. The man is incapable to look at things through someone else’s perspective – for example, that of people needing health service, or that of health providers.
Not a given that reducing state specific regulations would reduce costs. Some of those regulations may very well be the very thing keeping costs from exploding.
It might be reasonable for states with high health care standards to try and standardize more of their laws and regulations. To the extent that more closely aligned regulations would allow more competition, that would be a good thing.
New England and New York total 34 million people combined. Getting more cross-state competition in this part of the country might well help keep health care costs lower while improving quality. I have no idea — I know little about health care policy — but it seems like something worth thinking about.
At the hostility to something OTHER than the multi-state monstrosity that exists– and is one of the largest obstacles to the actual achievement of single payer.
I can’t imagine how anyone thinks that 50X rules keep costs from exploding. Anecdotally, I had an out-of-state (NY was my home state at the time) ankle injury in CA, where the rules on whether to take and how to document an X ray were different than my early 90s cheapo HMO, which had a hissy that I had an Xray taken “out of network.” What followed were dozens of forms, phone calls, and affidavits. I eventually paid the stupid hospital in cash, which created dozens more forms, phone calls, affidavits, “outside consultant investigators” checking to see that I actually had an Xray, etc. I eventually was reimbursed, but it took close to 14 years.
14 years. For an Xray. Of a sprained ankle. I have actual lawsuit case files with less paper in them.
When ACA was in draft, people argued about how shoddy a system we get for such high costs. The 50 separate insurance environments is the SINGLE greatest reason why that crappy system exists. ACA was a huge step toward its demise, but eliminating all of the stupid local rules would be be its death knell.