And They're Off! The Democratic Candidates for 2020

[71 dB]

No. That doesn't qualify as " investigative reporting".

Why?

[71 dB]

Let's not all pile on 71.

He's from Finland, which may be pretty close to the total opposite of the USA, culturally, even though Trump likes to touch Finland's presidents knee a lot, while talking.

Thanks for your attempt to understand where I'm coming from. It's true Finland and the USA are quite different culturally. Small talk is big in the US, while in Finland we don't really do small talk, the reason why Finns can at first seem cold and rude, but it's the culture. I have watched a lot of Youtube videos of people from other countries coming to Finland and having the intense cultural shocks. 

However, this is not THE reason I am for medicare for all. Canada has single payer too, and it's somewhat similar culturally to the US, just a functioning democracy instead of an oligarchy. Majority of Americans support medicare for all and for a food reason. For-profit model just doesn't work for healthcare unless the purpose is to finance new yachts for the CEOs.

[Florestan]

I have watched a lot of Youtube videos of people from other countries coming to Finland and having the intense cultural shocks. 

It seems that YT is not only your main source of knowledge and wisdom but also your substitute for social interactions. Have you ever met a non-Finn in person, I wonder?

[drogulus]

How is the US going to pay the current system? That's the real question. Isn't it funny how they ask "howyougonnapay" only when it's something that would help regular people?

Tax cuts for the rich? No problem! Increase of military budget? No problem!
Cancellation of student loans? How are we gonna pay for it??
Healthcare for all? How are we gonna pay for it??

That's what you have in oligarchy.

     Whether you use the term oligarchy or not, you're right that the howyougonna is a weapon against social welfare.

      A few on the left try to raise a ruckus over military spending as a zero sum proposition. It doesn't work very well.

      I can't imagine using a "run out of dollars" argument for anything. If only health care stuff runs out, the same is true for missile stuff.

[JBS]

What's the evidence that things are generally worse for people under Obamacare?

To put it in very general terms, Obamacare and Medicare provide less coverage, with higher premiums, copayments, and deductibles in the case of Obamacare, than comparable employer provided plans.

[JBS]

are you saying that there AREN'T western European countries that have removed profit partially or completely from their healthcare systems?

My reply was specific to 71db, whose argument that health care is a necessity, so we need to get rid of profits and put it under total government control (aka single payer) actually applies to most things: food, clothing, housing, transportation, etc.

I wasn't talking about single payer. I was talking about the ideology that drives 71db's positions.

[greg]

Is there any investigative reporting presented via YouTube? Isn't 100% of whats on there just amateur opinion on other peoples legwork?

A considerable amount of the information you (and your beloved Kyle) take completely for granted and absorb through whatever circuitous route comes from some very talented people in what you sweepingly call "the corporate media".

It exists, but it's in the minority of news stuff on youtube. The reason should be pretty obvious: important stuff happens in many different places, and it takes a lot of money to travel, so it would be hard for a team of 1-5 people, which is usually what youtube channels are made of.

[drogulus]

My reply was specific to 71db, whose argument that health care is a necessity, so we need to get rid of profits and put it under total government control (aka single payer) actually applies to most things: food, clothing, housing, transportation, etc.

I wasn't talking about single payer. I was talking about the ideology that drives 71db's positions.

     Single payer systems will remain private sector. The doctors, clinics and hospitals will be as private as they are now.

     Dollars the government spends go into the private sector directly or through the pay of employees. That's where all the dollars end up, now and under any health care system. There will be profits.

     You can't say we didn't try to avoid single payer. We didn't even include a public option in OCare. All of the people who say they hate socialist health care proved they wouldn't settle for an alternative, no matter how badly compromised it was by their efforts to wreck it. The only way left is to place it behind a wall they can't blast through.

[milk]

To put it in very general terms, Obamacare and Medicare provide less coverage, with higher premiums, copayments, and deductibles in the case of Obamacare, than comparable employer provided plans.

These are more assertions. My question was specifically about evidence that people are generally worse off.

[Karl Henning]

It exists, but it's in the minority of news stuff on youtube. The reason should be pretty obvious: important stuff happens in many different places, and it takes a lot of money to travel, so it would be hard for a team of 1-5 people, which is usually what youtube channels are made of.

And, the smaller the team, to state the obvious, the less likelihood that there will be checks and balances within the organization--the likelier that you have a pod of like-minded individuals, with insufficient intramural incentive to journalistic objectivity.

But they'll give a sympathetic audience just what they want.

[JBS]

     Single payer systems will remain private sector. The doctors, clinics and hospitals will be as private as they are now.

     Dollars the government spends go into the private sector directly or through the pay of employees. That's where all the dollars end up, now and under any health care system. There will be profits.

     You can't say we didn't try to avoid single payer. We didn't even include a public option in OCare. All of the people who say they hate socialist health care proved they wouldn't settle for an alternative, no matter how badly compromised it was by their efforts to wreck it. The only way left is to place it behind a wall they can't blast through.

Derp. If it's single payer, it's public sector because it is the government via bureaucrats and regulations. If the government doesn't pay for hernia operations, people won't get hernia operations unless they have the money to pay for it all themselves. It's not who is paid that defines private sector but who pays it.

[schnittkease]

...a pod of like-minded individuals, with insufficient intramural incentive to journalistic objectivity.

Thanks for describing the majority of corporate media.

[Karl Henning]

Thanks for describing the majority of corporate media.

And those who echo buzzwords like "corporate media," rather than addressing the point.

Sure, there are challenges in larger organizations, too. But the challenge is amplified when you're just a few mates running a YouTube channel.

And, to state the obvious yet again: activism is not journalism.

[Madiel]

Derp. If it's single payer, it's public sector because it is the government via bureaucrats and regulations. If the government doesn't pay for hernia operations, people won't get hernia operations unless they have the money to pay for it all themselves. It's not who is paid that defines private sector but who pays it.

Just noting that there are a variety of systems between full private and literal single payer. In our system it's not so much the government not paying for operations (though strictly speaking there are situations where they won't pay for something on the grounds it's not clinically justified), it's more a case of the government stating how MUCH it will pay.

For many services there is a gap between what the government pays and what something costs. This is remarkably like what happens with lots of private health insurance anyway.

[Madiel]

And those who echo buzzwords like "corporate media," rather than addressing the point.

Sure, there are challenges in larger organizations, too. But the challenge is amplified when you're just a few mates running a YouTube channel.

And, to state the obvious yet again: activism is not journalism.

I'm in general agreement. You might be interested, though in an episode of a podcast called Against the Rules, which discusses how larger media organisations used to employ fact checkers to basically challenge the journalists internally to make sure stories are accurate, and how this job has been gradually dispensed with.

https://atrpodcast.com/episodes/the-alex-kogan-experience-s1!d20f3

[JBS]

Just noting that there are a variety of systems between full private and literal single payer. In our system it's not so much the government not paying for operations (though strictly speaking there are situations where they won't pay for something on the grounds it's not clinically justified), it's more a case of the government stating how MUCH it will pay.

For many services there is a gap between what the government pays and what something costs. This is remarkably like what happens with lots of private health insurance anyway.

Agreed. But 71db is explicitly arguing for literal single payer, and drogulus seems to agree with him.

My own preference is for the "public option" drogulus is against, and the Biden/Buttigieg wing of the Democratic Party is for.

[milk]

And, the smaller the team, to state the obvious, the less likelihood that there will be checks and balances within the organization--the likelier that you have a pod of like-minded individuals, with insufficient intramural incentive to journalistic objectivity.

But they'll give a sympathetic audience just what they want.

What confounds me and fascinates me are the people I continually run into who confidently gather like-minded fringe news into confident conspiratorial ideologies. Some of them even have the temerity to call themselves "journalists." They're working with facts and I don't dismiss them out of hand - but their questioning I'm-not-a-sucker attitude is often an unquestioning kind of twisted dogma. They're not always wrong but I certainly think they make a mess of reality.
I get annoyed but I also can't look away.

[greg]

And, the smaller the team, to state the obvious, the less likelihood that there will be checks and balances within the organization--the likelier that you have a pod of like-minded individuals, with insufficient intramural incentive to journalistic objectivity.

But they'll give a sympathetic audience just what they want.

That might sound right logically but I think in reality the result is either the same between big and small, or the opposite somewhat more (and definitely more likely to be the opposite if you are talking about youtubers who don't rely on youtube for money).

I don't think there is any more sort of checks and balances in any large organization just because there are more people, that's the problem. Decisions are still only made by a few and the rest, that aren't at the top, have to comply or else lose their job.

Some people can have more checks and balances within their self, individually, than a group of ten close-minded/non-critically thinking people. Others may have unchanging opinions their whole life, really it just depends.

And the great thing about youtube independent content creators is that there is waaaaaaayyy more variety of opinions out there, and more is always better.

[drogulus]

Derp. If it's single payer, it's public sector because it is the government via bureaucrats and regulations. If the government doesn't pay for hernia operations, people won't get hernia operations unless they have the money to pay for it all themselves. It's not who is paid that defines private sector but who pays it.

     Government spending of trillions of dollars per year doesn't put the payees in the public sector unless they are employed by the government themselves, and of course these bureaucrats (and soldiers and janitors) pay their money into the private sector, too. The government doesn't sell groceries.

     While there are public components of a health care system, it's mostly private and will remain so. It will continue to generate profits, just like all the other sectors of the economy that depend on government spending for wages, jobs and profits. Besides, what would happen to the economy if all the net dollars savings went away, all $23T of it. How the hell would the private sector pay for anything?

[greg]

That might sound right logically but I think in reality the result is either the same between big and small, or the opposite somewhat more (and definitely more likely to be the opposite if you are talking about youtubers who don't rely on youtube for money).

I don't think there is any more sort of checks and balances in any large organization just because there are more people, that's the problem. Decisions are still only made by a few and the rest, that aren't at the top, have to comply or else lose their job.

Some people can have more checks and balances within their self, individually, than a group of ten close-minded/non-critically thinking people. Others may have unchanging opinions their whole life, really it just depends.

And the great thing about youtube independent content creators is that there is waaaaaaayyy more variety of opinions out there, and more is always better.

What if there were a news channel where the goal wasn't to be neutral but to have both sides at the same time?

Like 50/50 representation of liberal/conservative, like a merger of Fox News and CNN? Would such a thing even be possible? I kind of don't think it would sustain itself for very long until the most aggressive people take over, even if represented with even numbers. Complete balance is just an impossibility.