And They're Off! The Democratic Candidates for 2020

[71 dB]

Your sources lie and distort  just as much as any other media outlet. That's why they are bad.
That you can't accept that fact suggests that you are the one who is brainwashed.

Am I to believe you are a genuine fact checker telling the truth about how my sources lie? Give me a break! I have said it many times: Yes, my sources make mistakes every now and then as everybody does, but they don't lie on purpose and they correct their mistakes and admit their mistakes. Whatever you think about them doesn't change the facts, but as long as you keep up your narrative of lying leftist I will call you brainwashed.

[SimonNZ]

It's not so much that your " sources" lie - it's that they're sloppy and superficial and encouraging a cult like devotion that accepts their conclusions as the final word rather than digging deeper.

And if you're saying you're going to keep doing what many have told you they find insulting then you're self identifying as a troll and there'd no reason I should respect or listen to you at all.

[JBS]

Am I to believe you are a genuine fact checker telling the truth about how my sources lie? Give me a break! I have said it many times: Yes, my sources make mistakes every now and then as everybody does, but they don't lie on purpose and they correct their mistakes and admit their mistakes. Whatever you think about them doesn't change the facts, but as long as you keep up your narrative of lying leftist I will call you brainwashed.

I've given you specific instances when your sources have, at the very least, not given the whole truth, and you consistently insist the facts I present are merely corporate propaganda. You insist that anyone who doesn't agree with their ideas is a corporate tool, as if there is only one to deal with those problems.

Your real failure is your inability to understand that implementing most of their ideas will actually increase the power of the 1% by concentrating decision making at the national level.  Medicare for All simply replaces insurance company technocrats with government bureaucrats operating under a politically imposed budget.  And so on down the list.

Assume the Young Turks lie as much as any other media outlet or political advocacy group does, and your understanding of  US politics and US problems  will increase exponentially.

[71 dB]

I've given you specific instances when your sources have, at the very least, not given the whole truth, and you consistently insist the facts I present are merely corporate propaganda. You insist that anyone who doesn't agree with their ideas is a corporate tool, as if there is only one to deal with those problems.

You are giving up on lowering drug prices. To you it's a law of nature Big Pharma can abuse patents laws. Corruption is the root problem and electing lefty politician to power means that corruption will be addressed so that Big Pharma can't abuse patents laws and drug prices can be lowered. My sources have never said patent laws aren't a problem, at least I haven't heard that. So, your claim of them giving only half-truths is weak at best and meaningless considering what's the point of progressive politics. Drug prices is just one problem among may other.

Your real failure is your inability to understand that implementing most of their ideas will actually increase the power of the 1% by concentrating decision making at the national level.  Medicare for All simply replaces insurance company technocrats with government bureaucrats operating under a politically imposed budget.  And so on down the list.

No. The incentives aren't the same. Corporations make profit denying care. Government has a fixed budget to use which creates the more rational incentive to ration care based on need rather than size of wallet. If you were right then healthcare in countries with government run healthcare insurance (single payer) would be just as bad as in the US, but that's not the case. Somehow single payer countries are able to cover everyone with half of the costs. That wouldn't be the case if you were right, but it is the case. So, I AM RIGHT! You are wrong.

Assume the Young Turks lie as much as any other media outlet or political advocacy group does, and your understanding of  US politics and US problems  will increase exponentially.

I take critically everything TYT included, but so far the amount of lies they have told is on "non-existing" level compared to corporate media. You are repeating what the corporate media tells and you could think about how truthful that is yourself.

[71 dB]

Dr. Cornel West Explains Why Bernie Beats Trump

https://www.youtube.com/v/1gbKn4O5ZYw

[Karl Henning]

Dr. Cornel West Explains Why Bernie Beats Trump

https://www.youtube.com/v/1gbKn4O5ZYw

Hold onto that dream. Never question!

[JBS]

Madiel was right to abandon this thread. You are insufferable.

What is insufferable is 71db's insistence that he knows better than anyone else, his insistence that his sources, and only his sources, tell the truth, and that there are no other possible solutions, and (most laughable of all), Sen. Sanders is the only progressive politician capable of implementing the progressive agenda.  All this while he seems unable to actually understand the points I am making. Just look at his previous post, where he can't understand my points that patent and regulatory reform are necessary to get lower drug prices, and giving the government power to negotiate won't do anything important (I believe it will actually increase corruption); that government funded care does not really base its funding algorithms on actual need (his own Finland is right now exemplifying the mismatch of theory and practice, but he apparently can't even see that), that the Young Turks are advocates who tailor their information just like any other  media outfit, and of course the very basic one: that thinking there are serious problems with progressive ideas can only result from media brainwashing,  and not from the fact that there are serious problems with most of the progressive agenda...the biggest problem  of course being that as government control and regulation increase, corruption also increases.  You'll notice I don't harangue you, even though you in general hold the same ideas as him. But you don't go around announcing anyone who disagrees with you is brainwashed.

[North Star]

his own Finland is right now exemplifying the mismatch of theory and practice

What precisely are you referring to?

[JBS]

What precisely are you referring to?

This
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/15/world/finland-health-care-intl/index.html

Of course, it's not all rosy. In March, the Finnish government resigned because it failed to get its health care reform through Parliament -- becoming the second government in a row to fail to do so.
Finnish's decentralized health care system is often managed by local municipalities with populations ranging from hundreds of thousands of people to fewer than 100. And that decentralized nature is not only very expensive to maintain but also can produce vast disparities in the quality of care.
Municipalities receive funding for health care services based on the size of the taxable population, which can make it more difficult to provide services in remote and larger areas -- where those services are also more expensive to begin with.
In March, just after Juha Sipila's government resigned, the governor of the bank of Finland, Ollie Rehn, warned that reform remained urgent "from the point of view of fiscal sustainability.
....
To make Finland's health care system financially sustainable, one of the aims of the last government's reform proposal was to cut costs by centralizing services and introducing more private options. But centralization is proving tricky in a country that is sparsely populated in some areas, and where the health care system was designed to serve even the most remote parts of a country that stretches all the way up to the Arctic Circle.
Way back in 2013, the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development was already warning that Finland was lagging behind many other OECD countries in having high rates of unmet needs. At the time, more than 4% of Finnish people reported unmet medical needs due to cost, travel distance or waiting lists -- a proportion significantly higher than in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands.
As funding shrinks for future generations, even more Finns could find their needs unmet, warns Heikki Hiilamo, a social policy analyst who has advised successive governments on how they might reform the system.

Is that article inaccurate in any important detail?

[71 dB]

1 --- What is insufferable is 71db's insistence that he knows better than anyone else,

2 --- his insistence that his sources, and only his sources, tell the truth, and that there are no other possible solutions,

3 --- and (most laughable of all), Sen. Sanders is the only progressive politician capable of implementing the progressive agenda.

4 --- All this while he seems unable to actually understand the points I am making. Just look at his previous post, where he can't understand my points that patent and regulatory reform are necessary to get lower drug prices, and giving the government power to negotiate won't do anything important (I believe it will actually increase corruption); that government funded care does not really base its funding algorithms on actual need (his own Finland is right now exemplifying the mismatch of theory and practice, but he apparently can't even see that), that the Young Turks are advocates who tailor their information just like any other  media outfit, and of course the very basic one: that thinking there are serious problems with progressive ideas can only result from media brainwashing,  and not from the fact that there are serious problems with most of the progressive agenda...the biggest problem  of course being that as government control and regulation increase, corruption also increases.  You'll notice I don't harangue you, even though you in general hold the same ideas as him. But you don't go around announcing anyone who disagrees with you is brainwashed.

1 --- It's not about knowing, but understanding why people say what they say.

2 --- It's not like "my" sources declare themselves divine creatus who tell the "truth" to others. It's about telling about things as they are without the need to smear things because someone pays you to do so.

3 --- Elizabeth Warren would certainly be able to implement some progressive ideas, but why not choose the best? A progressive who has been one for 50 years instead someone who used to be a Republican not long ago. Also, Bernie is stronger against Trump than E.W. and also polling better at this point (Warren did poll very well, but only briefly while Bernie has polled well consistenly). It's quite clear Bernie is a historical opportunity.

4 --- Did Trump do patent and regulatory reform? Would president Biden do patent and regulatory reform? Would president Bernie do patent and regulatory reform? If someone does it it's Benie, the one not taking Big Pharma money! Elsewhere in the World government power to negotiate DOES make a difference so it much be the same in the US when corruption is removed. The healthcare system in Finland is no way perfect. Every country has it's own strenghts and weaknesses, but I believe the healthcare system of Finland ranks pretty high (the second best after Norway for women to give birth for example) and I'm sure most Americans would want same kind of system if they knew about it instead of the for profit hell they have to endure now. TYT advocates better life for regular Americans and they tell the thing reflecting that. Better healthcare system = better life = single payer (as evidenced comparing US healthcare to other countries). Corporate media are advocates for corporate profits and oligarchy, BUT they act as if they were for regular Americans! That's the problem! If they said US should keep for profit healthcare so insurance companies can keep on maximizing profit denying care and keeping the price of healthcare high I would say at least they are honest. Instead they smear facts and fearmonger to force the facts support they ideology. It's mindblowing an intelligent person like you don't see that.

[71 dB]

Is that article inaccurate in any important detail?

The details are correct as far as I can tell, but you must understand this is a corporate article against Medicare for all, trying to make problem more dramatic than they are. All countries, Finland included, must figure out how to finance things when population gets older. Nordic model is still something that would help the US society, even taking the details of this article into account.

[JBS]

The details are correct as far as I can tell, but you must understand this is a corporate article against Medicare for all, trying to make problem more dramatic than they are. All countries, Finland included, must figure out how to finance things when population gets older. Nordic model is still something that would help the US society, even taking the details of this article into account.

My question was addressed to North Star, not you, because I trust his judgement.  I would have surprised if you didn't complain about  corporate propaganda, because that's your standard fallback when presented with facts that contradict your preferred narrative.

[71 dB]

My question was addressed to North Star, not you, because I trust his judgement.  I would have surprised if you didn't complain about  corporate propaganda, because that's your standard fallback when presented with facts that contradict your preferred narrative.

Well, I don't care if you addressed your question to Mickey Mouse. This is an open discussion board and I answer questions if I feel like it. You are of course entitled to not trust what I say. Since you are so interested* of Finnish healthcare system, having answers from as many Finns as possible should be interesting to you, but if North Star is the only person you trust then you have to wait for him to have the time to answer you. I think his answer will be similar to mine, but we'll see.

The facts presented in the CNN article. do not contradict "my narrative." The conclusions do. If Finland had US style for profit healthcare system the problems would be 100-fold.

* I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be if it wasn't used against Bernie/MfA.

[Karl Henning]

Well, I don't care if you addressed your question to Mickey Mouse. This is an open discussion board and I answer questions if I feel like it. You are of course entitled to not trust what I say. Since you are so interested* of Finnish healthcare system, having answers from as many Finns as possible should be interesting to you, but if North Star is the only person you trust then you have to wait for him to have the time to answer you. I think his answer will be similar to mine, but we'll see.

Karlo is by no means the only trustworthy chap; but better to wait for his sober reply, than bother with your predictable yada-yada.

[JBS]

.

The facts presented in the CNN article. do not contradict "my narrative." The conclusions do. If Finland had US style for profit healthcare system the problems would be 100-fold.

On the contrary, the facts depict the problems with all single payer plans: the limited resources are allocated by politicians*,  rural areas in particular are underserved, and none of those grand promises Bernie makes are delivered on.

*the corruption inherent in that all by itself should make anyone wary of single-payer programs.

* I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be if it wasn't used against Bernie/MfA.

I'm interested in Finland because you're from Finland, so you ought to know first hand (or at least second hand, through family, etc) the problems with the system your own country uses.

[71 dB]

Karlo is by no means the only trustworthy chap; but better to wait for his sober reply, than bother with your predictable yada-yada.

My predictable yada-yada indicates I am at least consistent in what I say.

On the contrary, the facts depict the problems with all single payer plans: the limited resources are allocated by politicians*,  rural areas in particular are underserved, and none of those grand promises Bernie makes are delivered on.

*the corruption inherent in that all by itself should make anyone wary of single-payer programs.

As I said all countries have problems, but when healthcare systems are compared, the US is in the bottom of the list of healthcare systems ranked among developped countries. Your beloved corporate media doesn't want to talk about that: The 45.000 people who die each year because they don't have access to basic healthcare, the helf million bankruptcies every year caused mainly by healthcare bills, the fact that Americans avoid going to the doctor because they fear thay can't afford what the doctor finds and how many American ration medicine to afford it etc. Instead your beloved corporate media wearmonger medicare for all with ridiculoius claims and bringing up the problems of Finnish healthcare system this way is part of that.

Someone has to allocate resources and it's not taxi drivers so it's politicians. You can't have good services in rural areas. That would cost more than going to Moon, but you can have all people have access to healthcare closer to urban areas. Bernies has not made promises of rural services. People in rural areas can use cars to come to where ever the healthcare is provided and those people WILL have more options because everyone is covered and networks are no more to limit options. You can go to the nearist doctors, not the nearist doctor in the network of your plan.

Corruption is a thing in politics, but you can control it (e.g. election funding/political donations laws). Private bisnesses are out there to make profit and aren't better than corrupt politicians.

I'm interested in Finland because you're from Finland, so you ought to know first hand (or at least second hand, through family, etc) the problems with the system your own country uses.

Yeah, but you only want to hear what supports your beliefs...

[North Star]

that government funded care does not really base its funding algorithms on actual need (his own Finland is right now exemplifying the mismatch of theory and practice, but he apparently can't even see that)

This
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/15/world/finland-health-care-intl/index.html

Of course, it's not all rosy. In March, the Finnish government resigned because it failed to get its health care reform through Parliament -- becoming the second government in a row to fail to do so.
Finnish's decentralized health care system is often managed by local municipalities with populations ranging from hundreds of thousands of people to fewer than 100. And that decentralized nature is not only very expensive to maintain but also can produce vast disparities in the quality of care.
Municipalities receive funding for health care services based on the size of the taxable population, which can make it more difficult to provide services in remote and larger areas -- where those services are also more expensive to begin with.
In March, just after Juha Sipila's government resigned, the governor of the bank of Finland, Ollie Rehn, warned that reform remained urgent "from the point of view of fiscal sustainability.
....
To make Finland's health care system financially sustainable, one of the aims of the last government's reform proposal was to cut costs by centralizing services and introducing more private options. But centralization is proving tricky in a country that is sparsely populated in some areas, and where the health care system was designed to serve even the most remote parts of a country that stretches all the way up to the Arctic Circle.
Way back in 2013, the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development was already warning that Finland was lagging behind many other OECD countries in having high rates of unmet needs. At the time, more than 4% of Finnish people reported unmet medical needs due to cost, travel distance or waiting lists -- a proportion significantly higher than in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands.
As funding shrinks for future generations, even more Finns could find their needs unmet, warns Heikki Hiilamo, a social policy analyst who has advised successive governments on how they might reform the system.

Is that article inaccurate in any important detail?

Yes. The article claims that all municipalities regardless of size have the same responsibilities. In fact, smaller municipalities are required by law to work together in larger healthcare units as per the Act on Restructuring Local Government and Services (169/2007), demanding that municipalities of under 20,000 population arrange their healthcare in a group of municipalities that is over 20,000 population.

The article goes on about centralization being difficult in a country of long distances and sparsely populated areas. The real difficulty the previous government faced was the introduction of private healthcare options provided with taxpayer money, and the constitutional law committee. The reform would have passed without this, and being tied to a municipal reform didn't help. The current government with Social Democrats (along with the Center Party, Green Party, Left Alliance and Swedish People's Party) will doubtless be more successful with the reform without the extras thrown in. To be clear, unlike the article says, introducing more private options paid with taxes was not done to make the system be more financially sustainable, it was attempted because it would thicken the wallets of corporations, whose interests the National Coalition Party always looks for, and the Center Party as well, although perhaps more generously towards small businesses. There is no research or data whatsoever that legitimately suggested that the private option would save anyone money except the private healthcare providers. I'm sure it's true that the other Nordic countries are slightly ahead in most things related to health care, due to denser/larger population, shorter distances, and probably a bit better funding since the Finnish economy suffered more than they in the recession. And the Netherlands is another country that is doing a good job with their healthcare and has the bonus of high population density. But none of this means that the US shouldn't look at the rest of the world for a better healthcare model. The high rates of unmet needs is a good one to pick as you can make it sound as if 4% of Finns are dying of cancer because they don't live in the big cities, when it just means there are long lines to treatment or they have to wait for a taxi to drive them to the hospital.


https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/04/which-countries-have-the-most-cost-effective-healthcare/

Though spending on healthcare is below the European average, the quality of healthcare service in Finland is high. According to a survey published by the European Commission in 2000, Finland has the highest number of people satisfied with their hospital care system in the EU: 88 percent of Finnish respondents were satisfied compared with the EU average of 41.3 percent.

https://healthmanagement.org/c/it/issuearticle/overview-of-the-healthcare-systems-in-the-nordic-countries



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita

[71 dB]

Thanks North Star for your awesome answer to JBS demonstrating impressive level of patience. I don't have this level of patience anymore after explaining these things million times online and seeing it has near zero effect to anyone.

[JBS]

My predictable yada-yada indicates I am at least consistent in what I say.

As I said all countries have problems, but when healthcare systems are compared, the US is in the bottom of the list of healthcare systems ranked among developped countries. Your beloved corporate media doesn't want to talk about that: The 45.000 people who die each year because they don't have access to basic healthcare, the helf million bankruptcies every year caused mainly by healthcare bills, the fact that Americans avoid going to the doctor because they fear thay can't afford what the doctor finds and how many American ration medicine to afford it etc. Instead your beloved corporate media wearmonger medicare for all with ridiculoius claims and bringing up the problems of Finnish healthcare system this way is part of that.

Someone has to allocate resources and it's not taxi drivers so it's politicians. You can't have good services in rural areas. That would cost more than going to Moon, but you can have all people have access to healthcare closer to urban areas. Bernies has not made promises of rural services. People in rural areas can use cars to come to where ever the healthcare is provided and those people WILL have more options because everyone is covered and networks are no more to limit options. You can go to the nearist doctors, not the nearist doctor in the network of your plan.

Corruption is a thing in politics, but you can control it (e.g. election funding/political donations laws). Private bisnesses are out there to make profit and aren't better than corrupt politicians.

Yeah, but you only want to hear what supports your beliefs...

Mirror, berate yourself.
It obviously hasn't  occurred to that the  Young Turks are doing their oen fear mongering? For instance, that bankruptcy statistic is bogus, since it  doesn't separate people who declare bankruptcy solely because of astronomical medical bills from people who declare bankruptcy because illness leaves them unable to work and therefore can't pay any bills. I've seen no statistic that makes such a distinction. The Young Turks want you to think all those bankruptcies are from the first category because Medicare for All won't do anything to help the second category. (Also, the most common iteration of that statistic seems to date from 2005, and therefore does reflect the impacts of the Great Recession and Obamacare.)

[JBS]

Is that article inaccurate in any important detail?

Yes. The article claims that all municipalities regardless of size have the same responsibilities. In fact, smaller municipalities are required by law to work together in larger healthcare units as per the Act on Restructuring Local Government and Services (169/2007), demanding that municipalities of under 20,000 population arrange their healthcare in a group of municipalities that is over 20,000 population.

The article goes on about centralization being difficult in a country of long distances and sparsely populated areas. The real difficulty the previous government faced was the introduction of private healthcare options provided with taxpayer money, and the constitutional law committee. The reform would have passed without this, and being tied to a municipal reform didn't help. The current government with Social Democrats (along with the Center Party, Green Party, Left Alliance and Swedish People's Party) will doubtless be more successful with the reform without the extras thrown in. To be clear, unlike the article says, introducing more private options paid with taxes was not done to make the system be more financially sustainable, it was attempted because it would thicken the wallets of corporations, whose interests the National Coalition Party always looks for, and the Center Party as well, although perhaps more generously towards small businesses. There is no research or data whatsoever that legitimately suggested that the private option would save anyone money except the private healthcare providers. I'm sure it's true that the other Nordic countries are slightly ahead in most things related to health care, due to denser/larger population, shorter distances, and probably a bit better funding since the Finnish economy suffered more than they in the recession. And the Netherlands is another country that is doing a good job with their healthcare and has the bonus of high population density. But none of this means that the US shouldn't look at the rest of the world for a better healthcare model. The high rates of unmet needs is a good one to pick as you can make it sound as if 4% of Finns are dying of cancer because they don't live in the big cities, when it just means there are long lines to treatment or they have to wait for a taxi to drive them to the hospital.


https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/04/which-countries-have-the-most-cost-effective-healthcare/


https://healthmanagement.org/c/it/issuearticle/overview-of-the-healthcare-systems-in-the-nordic-countries



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita

Thank you for the reasoned explanation.

The business of health care expenditure per capita seems a bit misleading.  The US figures have to account  for people who are not insured, and people who get publicly funded health care (Medicaid, Medicare, Veteran's Administration are the primary vectors). It's the latter who typically get the worst health care.  Medicare for All thus represents expanding that to everyone.

What 71db doesn't seem to understand that Medicare for All would represent a degradation of the level of health care for most people. At best it would give them nothing better. The horror stories the Young Turks tell are atypical.

  The 30 million or so people without insurance are the problem.

But the problem's solution should not require making everyone else settle for care that's worse than what they have