From recently hacked emails and such, an audio recording of Secretary Clinton surfaced with her speaking about those youthful Sanders supporters and how they were naive about wanting free health care and free college – and how unrealistic that notion is.
I do hope someone from the Clinton campaign is monitoring BMG.
While not youthful, I am young at heart. Even my doctor will attest to that. My blood pressure at last check was 120/85 and my resting pulse rate is under 60. I will be 62 in a few weeks.
I’m not going to get into the free college area. Maybe I’ll save that for another time. For now, the topic is free health care.
No, we Sanders supporters (who are now Clinton supporters) are not that ignorant. We know that nothing is free. What we mean by “we want free health care” is this:
We want it “free” from the excessive costs of CEO salaries and sales quota bonuses that are currently on full display with Wells Fargo.
We want it “free” from first quarter earnings, market projections, tax deducible seminars in the Bahamas.
In short, we want it “free” from markets and ALL the dark sides of markets.
We want it as free as our police departments, fire departments, public roads and all municipal endeavors that we, as a people, join together for our mutual aid.
We do not want it “affordable” anymore than we want a women’s right to choose, minority rights, marriage rights to be “affordable”.
We want justice.
And justice ought not be for sale.
Got that?
johnk says
some of the the younger supports of Sanders during the primary. It was frustrating listening to those Sanders supporters with the online polls and moronic conspiracies. But this, meh, making it up. Not what it was.
Christopher says
…on all sides of this discussion understands that “free” in this context is shorthand for taxpayer supported.
johntmay says
and that meaning was not what I heard. Even if it was, how is taxpayer supported health care “unrealistic” when it already exists in every developed nation and with all American citizens over the age of 65?
jconway says
Here is a good primer on why every effort to enact national health insurance has failed in these United States.
johntmay says
“because people with a crap ton of money” are against it and they have been handed access/control of our system in exchange because even some Democrats have accepted defeat saying “the money HAS to come from somewhere.”
johntmay says
“There’s just a deep desire to believe that we can have free college, free health care, that what we’ve done hasn’t gone far enough, and that we just need to, you know, go as far as, you know, ‘Scandinavia,’ whatever that means, And half the people don’t know what that means, but it’s something that they deeply feel.”
So once again, she denigrates those who do not agree with her as ignorant people who are acting on emotion, not intellect. This is the case with so many people in power today, as described by Chris Hayes when he wrote “Twilight of the Elites”
jconway says
Or how hard it is to achieve in this country. The Scandinavia example happened to be in a unique period where rural farmers and urban laborers joined forces with the bourgeois businessmen against landed gentry and the monarchy. There is a really interesting history on how that happened. It would be very difficult to replicate here. It would also be important to note they are moving away from that model and adopting center-right governments and liberalizations on state controls.
So how do we achieve a stronger safety net in the US? We elect a Democratic President, restore a progressive majority in both houses and on the Supreme Court, and at this stage Hillary is the only game in town to achieving any of those things.
Which is why Bernie did two things:
1) Endorse and campaign for Clinton
2) Build Our Revolution to win the downballot races to turns statehouses into agents for progressive change. I already has two victories in MA.
So if you aren’t enthusiastic about the first effort, work on the second effort! Whining about it and insisting the perfect is possible without doing any of the legwork to achieve it seems counter productive. That’s exactly how the left always eats itself. And yes, the attitude Hillary and some of her supporters had is also how the left eats its young. But Splintering into factions is what the far right wants. Banding together for a common cause is how the far right governs, over and over again.
johntmay says
Instead of referring to citizens and potential voters that they are ignorant and emotional, instead of informed and rational as she claims to be?
She wants to expand Obamacare. Well, even today, President Bill Clinton called Obamacare “the craziest thing in the world”.
Tell me please, why anyone would want to expand on that?
Christopher says
…but again I think she herself assumes that free means tax supported AND assumes that those advocating same mean tax supported. I actually would like to see more things “free” in that sense since we do it for public education and Medicare so it’s not THAT far fetched. I just don’t understand why you knock Hillary around so much for it.
johntmay says
Instead of referring to citizens and potential voters that they are ignorant and emotional, instead of informed and rational as she claims to be?
She wants to expand Obamacare. Well, even today, President Bill Clinton called Obamacare “the craziest thing in the world”.
Tell me please, why anyone would want to expand on that?
Christopher says
…because she in fact DOES think that voters are smarter than you are giving her credit for.
johntmay says
why does she say that 50% are ignorant?
SomervilleTom says
She did NOT say that 50% of VOTERS are ignorant. She said that 50% of Donald Trump supporters are deplorable. There IS a difference.
Comments like this only hurt. They are not constructive, they don’t build support for anything or anyone except Donald Trump.
Christopher says
…I think he was talking about half the people supporting Sanders per the quote he linked above. However, even those she did not just blatantly call ignorant, but said they did not understand this issue. I don’t understand why a candidate should NOT say that there is a gap in understanding if that is the case.
johntmay says
she ought to be able to fill it in with more than “Scandinavia”
paulsimmons says
Misunderstanding the quote and the context thereof is not “Trumpist”.
Binary approaches – and I speak as a Clinton supporter – don’t help elect the Secretary.
Like it or not, John’s beliefs are not uncommon, his issues are genuine, and the Clinton campaign is conspicuously incompetent in addressing this.
I’m not giving the media a pass (Paul Krugman is correct about media hostility to the Secretary), but it occurs in a climate of political malpractice by her campaign.
SomervilleTom says
I’m forced to see a lot of TV these days. I’ve seen the ads here in MD. It’s a grainy picture of Ms. Clinton, and a caption that reads: “Calls Americans deplorable”, or something to that effect. The caption explicitly misquotes Ms. Clinton.
Here is Donald Trump himself demonstrating his “misunderstanding”. What you call a “misunderstanding” I call an outright misquote. If this comment is a “misunderstanding”, then it is the same “misunderstanding” that the Donald Trump campaign is spending a LOT of money to reinforce here in the Washington DC television market.
This comment makes the same misquote, and that’s why I characterized it as “Trumpist”.
johntmay says
She’s better than Trump….point taken. Now what?
johntmay says
She said half don’t know what that means…..
Look it up. I posted the actual quote and he link.
SomervilleTom says
You said half of the voters. She said half of Donald Trump supporters.
I thought I articulated that clearly enough, but perhaps not.
johntmay says
She said half of the people who want “free” health care (aka, universal single payer) do not know what that means. And then blurted “Scandinavia”.
SomervilleTom says
I see now that you were referring to her comments about health care. I thought you were referring to her “deplorables” remark (which the Trump campaign is replaying over and over here in MD).
I apologize for my misunderstanding.
JimC says
Wow, no one could have predicted that. 🙂
johntmay says
Prior to leaving your home, en route from Springfield to Boston, you’d have to check your policy to see what exists along the way accepted your “travel policy”. If the exit you needed on Boston was 24C because you wanted to get to South Station, there is a chance that 24C does not accept your policy and so you would either have to exit earlier and take side roads or exit later and double back. Your third option would be to contact your policy provider and ask for a exception/referral but such things take a few days and you have to pick someone up at the station today. The tolls along the route may of may not be paid for by your policy and should you be foolish to ask how much each toll was, you’d no doubt receive a different answer from anyone you spoke to. Is your vehicle an electric hybrid? That could affect your rates, or maybe not. It would all depend on what power source is running the vehicle at the time it passes the toll reader and gets coded.
Of course, a year ago, you shopped for a travel policy but you have no idea that today you would have a hybrid vehicle or that you would need to pick up someone at South Station. Back then, all you did was commute to Stockbridge a few times each year to visit your sister and your policy was fine then, back when you had the Ford F-150. Today, however, that policy serves you very poorly and your out of pocket costs are tremendous. You’ll have to wait a few more months before open enrollment begins so you can switch policies.
Even so, switching policies does not fix the problems as individual exits renew their networks with some policy providers and not others. It’s a constant tornado of change within the system where no one really knows what vehicles are covered, how much any toll costs, or why the same exit for the same vehicle charges one price for the blue Tesla and another for the white one.
If you’re poor and cannot afford a travel policy, you are subsidized to cover the costs but your policy has so many restrictions co-pays and deductibles you’re better off walking.
centralmassdad says
You would head on through the Allston Brighton tolls, and six months later would get a bill for $12,000. You would then write about a dozen inquiry letters, none of which would be answered. You would then have to make at least four visits to the social security office– two hours wait apiece for a 1 minute visit– only to eventually find that someone checked box “1” instead of box “2” on Form 4541/JP/456-A.
And you would pay a shit-ton more in taxes, because the way Medicare and Medicaid can be run so cheaply is by not actually paying providers the cost of care. Providers make up the difference by billing the shit out of everyone else, in order to subsidize the government programs. Once you put everyone on the government program, there is no way to get the subsidy, so the cost of Medicare must go WAY up to break even.
No thank you.
johntmay says
People using Medicare like it a lot.
> And you would pay a shit-ton more in taxes, ?
But eliminate health care payments to private corporations and wind up with a net gain.
centralmassdad says
It is subsidized and therefore cheap. But it can’t remain cheap if the source of subsidy is removed.
My experience in dealing with end-of-life care Medicare has been less than pleasant, and extraordinarily time-consuming, to put it mildly. It has been like renewing your drivers license once every 6 weeks or so, for a year.
There will be no net gain. You are still talking about adding lots of people to the system. Guess what, when you switch from providing services from 100 people to 1000 people, it will cost a lot more money. Also it will cost more because, without giant subsidies, govt insurance will actually have to cover the cost of services.
Sure I will save $800/month on premiums. Then the government will decide that I’m not middle class, I’m rich, and need to pay my fair share, and raise my taxes by $2000/month. And for that I will get less service than I get now.
I would be willing to allow a “public option” in order to try to allow a govt program to build up slowly to see if it can possibly provide the promised service.
But, a direct switch to nationalized insurance, or “Medicare For All”? No.
In fact, HELL no.
jconway says
Polls may say voters favor single payer or ‘canadian style’ care, but then the same polls also show most voters don’t want to be limited to ‘a single government run plan’ and don’t want to have care rationed or choices taken away. Give them 40 plans on a complicated internet based exchange and they feel overwhelmed by all the complexity.
A public option keeps it simple. Most of us will opt into it. I will especially appreciate having coverage that isn’t dependent on a job, as I have held four jobs this past year and will likely hold a fifth before the year is over. But folks like CMD who have steadier jobs, families to support, and poor interactions with Medicare can feel free to stick with their work plans or private plans on the exchanges.
jconway says
I feel like you are still bitter over the primary and providing too much symbolic weight to Sanders support for single payer. You also seem to advocating a scrap and replace policy, similar to the GOP, that would repeal ACA and then enact single payer. That is such a politically stupid thing to do, Sanders had to deny repeatedly he was in favor of it. In fact, he voted for the ACA system you decry and said it was a foundation to build upon. Sec. Clinton agrees. The only difference between her and Sanders on this question is her unwillingness to sugarcoat the voters about how hard it is to enact.
Your choice was always a President Sanders or President Clinton vetoing Obamacare repeals or a President Trump signing them. That’s it. There is no President capable of passing single payer over a Republican majority in Congress, and we might not see one until 2030. John Dingell introduced this bill every year in office, 55 years in total, and it never made it pass committee. That’s why he voted for Obamacare. As did Sen. Sanders.
What can we work on instead? Shoring up ACA through increasing Medicaid, Medicare, and creating a public option that could theoretically pass a Democratic Senate and a Democratic house.
So how do we change this? Preserve what we have at the top. Elect Clinton, elect Democratic Senators and members of Congress and keep the ACA and expand on it.
Enact change at the bottom. Single payer failed in VT, but the economics might enable it in New York which has a robust Working Families Party to force the Democrats to the left or in Oregon which has a strong progressive legislature willing to be bold on other issues and see if they work there and use them as a model for the rest of the country.
That’s it. Having a President rhetorically committed to a single payer plan that will never be enacted and having a President refusing to make that commitment knowing it won’t pass ends up being a wash. In terms of what they can realistically do if elected, Sanders and Clinton are basically on the same page in terms of what must be done. And the symbolism is just that, nice words but irrelevant when it comes to making policy.
johntmay says
We have Medicare in place. We have Medicaid in place. We just need to expand them. They, unlike the ACA, are not rooted in the quagmire of for profit corporations. Until she makes a real move, a walk, not a talk, I will hold “never ever happen” against her. Expanding ACA has that awful word in it “affordable”. Affordable means it’s for sale, it’s not a right, it’s something for others to make a fortune on.
jconway says
There is no ‘walk’ that passes single payer past a Republican Congress. I am sorry, that’s not a difference of opinion that is a denial of basic political reality. Similarly, a ‘real move’ is her endorsement of the platform, of a robust public option, etc. Moves she has already made and will make with a Democratic Congress. Medicare and Medicaid are rooted in ‘the quagmire of for profit corporations’ since they negotiate prices in bulk with medical service providers, who are, by definition ‘for profit corporations’.
The only system in the world where medical services are truly provided ‘for free’ without a profit is Cuba. There the state forces exceptional students to become doctors and gives them a meager stipend to perform medical work like Che. It’s truly treated like a vocation there. But that requires a degree of government control no small-l/small-d liberal democrat can endorse.
Everywhere else, somebody is making a profit. Even in Canada or in the UK. Canada has single payer, which by definition means somebody is getting paid a profit, mainly the government is paying the third party provider to perform the service required for the patient. A fully nationalized system like NHS means that all the medical workers are employed directly by the government, which acts as the provider, but the system still makes enough of a profit to ensure its employees are paid to have a reasonable standard of living.
NHS also has wait times and rationing to a degree Americans are not unaccustomed to, that doesn’t make it a worse system, it does make it a drastically different system and not the panacea everyone makes it out to be on this side of the pond.
“Never ever happen” could also apply to other good things. Like America adopting a multi member parliamentary democracy instead of our fucked up bicameral legislature. Like nuclear disarmament. Like America passing massive tariffs and suddenly having 1950s style manufacturing come back at that eras levels of employment. Like America passing IRV or STV for national elections, or funding third political parties at the same rate.
Realism is an underrated quality in a legislator or policy maker, one that was in far short supply during the Bush years, when the willpower and bully pulpit of a President proved insufficient at creating a Jeffersonian democratic paradise in the Middle East. It’s easy to support single payer in history, it’s a lot harder to deliver it in practice. I’ll take compromising to get 80% of what I want over voting no on everything that isn’t 100% of what I want. That’s the biggest difference between Hillary and the Republicans and frankly Sanders. She wants to govern. They want to bitch.
johntmay says
Standard excuse used by what has become today’s version of the Blue Dog Democrats.
> The only system in the world where medical services are truly provided ‘for free’ without a profit is Cuba.
Yup, and they spend less than $1,000 per citizen as they enjoy a life span and infant mortality rates in line or better than ours.
Maybe there are no “Republicans” in Cuba to use as a scapegoat?
johntmay says
Non-profits and not-for profits still pay salaries. Please, this is easy stuff.
Christopher says
…sounding like you endorse a Communist regime? I suppose we could have no Republicans here if we outlawed opposition parties too. My advice is stick with the issues rather than personalities. You’d get a lot more agreement if you made your case for single payer or any number of other things without trolling Hillary Clinton and blaming her for all our woes.
johntmay says
Communist? Really?
jconway says
The answer is no. And as long as Republicans control the legislative process and have been demonstrably shown to have ground it to a halt, than no, there is no material difference between Bernie Sanders pledging to enact single payer and Hillary Clinton saying such a pledge could ‘never happen’ in her administration. Our Revolution is working to create the state legislatures and congressional majorities needed for passage. President Clinton will stave off the repeal effort and defend the gains. We need to do both simultaneously, and it is the height of intellectual dishonesty to argue it’s a binary choice between having nice things and not having nice things.
The Republicans are the villains of this story because they have tried, over 85 times, to repeal a reform you and I both agree is not sufficient enough to cover our health care needs. What makes you think they would suddenly favor actual socialized medicine? What could a President Sanders do to bring them to heal that a President Clinton somehow refuses to do?
johntmay says
My hunch is that liberals buy into the notion that they are too few, too powerless and those powerful Republicans will win! That’s just marketing. We can win. We just have to stop all the self doubt.
scott12mass says
With or without the medicare supplement plans? (Which most people I know have to buy to make it work well)
jconway says
And creating a 50 state public option. This has also been her stated position since 2007. I call that walking, not talking.
jconway says
It is the height of magical thinking to argue that Obama coming out for single payer with his majorities would’ve somehow led to the public option, or that if he had fought harder for longer we would’ve gotten something better than ACA passed. There simply were too many conservative Democrats and lockstep Republican opposition to the plan to push something stronger through. It was the best we could do a the time, something Clinton and even Obama regularly and publicly concede.
Now in the future there won’t be conservative Democrats, our minority caucus is no far more ideologically cohesive than the 2006-2010 majority caucus was, and a majority of Democratic Senators have endorsed a public option. The urgency to pass will be stronger when the choice will be passing a public option to save ACA or letting reform die. And I suspect in the post-2020 universe a successful Clinton presidency and continued gridlock could put the house in play.
The short version: you want President Clinton to do progressive shit than give her the votes!
Join Our Revolution here to downballot plays for a progressive majority.
Make phone calls for Maggie Hassan, you can’t stand Hillary at least work to get a Democratic Senate to overturn CU by voting in Merrick Garland and to work for a public option.