Phantasmal (06-30-2020), ThatOwlWoman (06-30-2020)
*Trump tweeted, "Despite the constant negative press covfefe"..........lol
Please leave your Trump 2024 signs in your yard. That way, my dog will know where to take a dump.
Phantasmal (06-30-2020), ThatOwlWoman (06-30-2020)
Good and fair question.
If I could waive my magic wand here would be my priorities:
1. Single payer health care. Before you scream socialism, here are the elements of what I'd do. Cover every single American for annual wellness visits, all preventative screenings, and hospitalizations. Allow employers to offer plans to their employees (like Medicare Advantage), and have a public option to compete with private plans. People could opt in to those plans (for a premium) or take basic coverage provided by 'Medicare for All'. Focus our health care priorities on prevention. We spend a ridiculous amount of money on people with diabetes and heart disease that are easily preventable by changing lifestyles and more tightly regulating food manufacturers. Sugar is killing people. Require Advanced Illness counseling. Half of our Medicare dollars are spent on people in the last year of the life. Doctors want to treat people. We have to allow people to make the choice to forgo treatment. From personal experience, I know many patients are pressured to 'fight' but are happier when they stop their treatments and focus on comfort.
2. Reform social security. If number 1 is effective, we will see an uptick in life expectancy, and we have not funded social security to adequately address that. We should look at what income is taxed to fund social security. We can easily increase revenues.
3. Raise the minimum wage. Yes, this will cause some inflation. Inflation is not inherently bad if it wages are rising at the same rate.
4. Tax reform. We are not taxing top incomes at anywhere near the rate they should be taxed. As part of the tax reform, we impose the one time wealth tax to retroactively address the disparity in wages and wealth.
5. Make public colleges free. I need to think about how exactly this would look, but it would involve raising admission standards and lowering costs. Other countries educate their best and brightest, we 'educate' our richest. That's stupid. We need to do the same for trade schools.
Those are a start. As part of all of this we need to address racial inequality, but much of what I'm proposing would do exactly that.
Matt Dillon (06-30-2020), ThatOwlWoman (06-30-2020)
Two things on that. First, the provider side remains fully private, although there would be a single fee schedule rather than multiple schedules and crazy contracts from individual plans. Second, on the payer side, while there is a single payer for the basic coverages, the plans I mentioned would be for profit plans administered by the insurance companies. It's really a hybrid plan with both public and private components. The most critical thing is that employers could still offer those private plans to employees, and they could still share in the cost, but the bulk of those premiums would come from the single payer. I do appreciate the question and the response. I actually consult with Medicare Advantage plans so I know how they work, and I think the model can be expanded to the larger population. Keep 'em coming. I like this type of discussion better than the trolling.
Matt Dillon (07-04-2020)
Tacomaman (07-01-2020)
Matt Dillon (07-04-2020), RB 60 (07-07-2020)
Can you articulate Trump's vision for his second term? If you can, you are way ahead of Trump. When asked that question, he just babbled. I'm not sure what your definition of losing is. I thought if you were ahead in every poll, you were winning. But maybe you can explain to me why that's wrong. LOL at you.
Phantasmal (07-05-2020), Tacomaman (07-05-2020)
Cancel 2020.2 (07-13-2020)
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