And They're Off! The Democratic Candidates for 2020

[Florestan]

people who declare bankruptcy because illness leaves them unable to work and therefore can't pay any bills.

This notion baffles me. In Romania if you get sick and need treatment in hospital or at home that prevents you from going to work you get a paid sick leave for as long as the treatment is needed, extending up to one year in grave cases such as for instance cancer. After the year is over and if your condition still prevents you from returning to work you are entitled to early retirement. You don't pay the full drugs price, government takes care of some amount of them, in grave case you really pay nothing. The idea that someone can go bankrupt because illness prevents them to work is inconceivable here. A lowering of one's standard of life and an increase in expenses, yes, by all means --- but bankruptcy is really out of the question.

[Karl Henning]

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

Yada is consistent with yada, but remains gibberish all the same.

[ritter]

This notion baffles me. In Romania if you get sick and need treatment in hospital or at home that prevents you from going to work you get a paid sick leave for as long as the treatment is needed, extending up to one year in grave cases such as for instance cancer. After the year is over and if your condition still prevents you from returning to work you are entitled to early retirement. You don't pay the full drugs price, government takes care of some amount of them, in grave case you really pay nothing. The idea that someone can go bankrupt because illness prevents them to work is inconceivable here. A lowering of one's standard of life and an increase in expenses, yes, by all means --- but bankruptcy is really out of the question.

Florestan has gone socialist!  The end is nigh!

[Florestan]

Florestan has gone socialist!  The end is nigh!

[71 dB]

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.)

TYT is not fearmongering because it's not "people would go bankrupt if US had for profit healtcare". They are commenting facts and the facts is thousands of people go bankrupt because of medical bills. Without the medical bills many would be able to pay their other bills, but medical bills make it impossible. The point is elsewhere in the world people don't get as huge medical bills as people get in the US. In Finland if you spend a month in hospital the bill is maybe $500. It's a hefty bill but doable for regular people. In the US the bill is hundreds of thousands and you are lucky if your insurance pays half of it! If you have say $200.000 to pay it's the same if you are working or not because regular people need to work for a decade or so to earn such money. Elsewhere in the world people have PAID SICK LEAVE so not being able to work isn't an issue, but the US doesn't even have paid vacation by law because it's an oligarchy.

As for the other sources of debt, progressive ideas can mitigate those too. Bernie is proposing eliminating all student loan debt. Together with medicare for all the amount of bankruptcies would certainly drop dramatically!

[71 dB]

It's time to bust the (corporate) myth that Bernie can't win the nomination and beat Trump:

https://www.youtube.com/v/hjVPQ6iH1lQ

[ritter]

Reading this thread, the image that insistently comes to mind is Diane Keaton, in Woody Allen's Love and Death, saying "Succour! Succour!". 

[Karl Henning]

It's time to bust the (corporate) myth that Bernie can't win the nomination and beat Trump:

https://www.youtube.com/v/hjVPQ6iH1lQ

Feel better? Good.

I still do not believe Bernie would beat Trump. I certainly think it possible that Bernie may be the nominee, though I think that would be a mistake.

[71 dB]

I still do not believe Bernie would beat Trump.

Why do you think that? We know from experience a Hillary Clinton-type of candidate doesn't beat Trump (because the votes come from wrong places to win the electorate vote) and at least Bernie is not Hillary Clinton-type of candidate so he is able to get votes were Hillary Clinton didn't. If Hillary Clinton didn't beat Trump and you think Bernie wouldn't beat either, what kind of candidate would in you opinion? Why would for example "corn Bob" Biden do better than Hillary Clinton? Sure, Biden is perhaps less hated than Hillary was, but then again his head isn't that sharp anymore and Trump has got Ukraine to attack Biden for so it doesn't look good for him if it is Biden vs Trump.

To beat Trump the Democratic candidate needs to be strong in such places as the rust belt were Trump obliterated Hillary Clinton because voters in those areas are drawn to populist candidates and Trump acted like one even if he really is a corporate status quo president. Bernie is very strong in those places because he is a TRUE populists, a real progressive who can expose Trump's lies. That's why Bernie can win Trump easily, but getting the nomination is another story because he has "record player" Biden and "wine cave" Buttigieg to beat and the corporate media is against him.

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/12/bernie-sanders-vs-donald-trump

Excepts:

Trump's true electoral weakness is not his loutishness, his congenital lying, or even his personal corruption. It's his function as a tool of the rich man's Republican Party, and his blatant disinterest in making life better for the vast majority of Americans living paycheck to paycheck.

Over the last forty years, no politician in America has focused as frankly or relentlessly on the unnecessary economic hardship faced by ordinary people as Bernie Sanders. This bread-and-butter emphasis is part of what has made Sanders the most popular presidential candidate in the field, especially among independent voters. And in a general election — on a scale far larger than any primary contest — no one is better prepared than Sanders to use that popular economic weapon to annihilate Donald Trump.

In the 206 counties that went for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and then Trump in 2016, Sanders has out-fundraised all of his competitors — by a long shot. By September 2019, he pulled in 81,841 individual donations from 33,185 donors in these flipped counties. That's roughly three times as many as Biden, Warren, or Pete Buttigieg.

This high volume of individual small-dollar donations in Obama-Trump counties shows that Sanders has strong grassroots support in those places — which makes sense, given that his political message is targeted to people whose lives get harder as elites grow richer. That captures the experience of many working-class people in the deindustrialized Rust Belt, abandoned by corporations in search of cheaper labor and higher profits elsewhere.

But perhaps the strongest argument for Bernie Sanders concerns a much larger group than any slice of disaffected Obama voters: the tens of millions of people, over 40 percent of the country, who typically do not vote in presidential elections.

American nonvoters, including nonvoters in the battleground states, are disproportionately young, non-white, and working-class. Bernie is distinctly popular with all of these groups, suggesting that he is by far our best shot to mobilize this vast slumbering army in a general election against Trump.

[SimonNZ]

[JBS]

It's time to bust the (corporate) myth that Bernie can't win the nomination and beat Trump:

https://www.youtube.com/v/hjVPQ6iH1lQ

You don't seem to understand that the people who voted for Trump because he claimed to be a populist will never vote for Bernie or any other progressive candidate, and they won't vote for him precisely because he's a leftist. As far as Trump voters are concerned, Sanders, Warren, and the Young Turks are an integral part of the elite. They are the fake populists in the eyes of Trump voters, and they blame the elites for Trump's failure to fulfill his promises. They don't blame Trump.

Which is why the claim that Bernie can defeat Trump is fantasy.

Edit: btw, a very large proportion of Trump voters in 2016 were people who don't normally vote.

[JBS]

In r if you spend a month in hospital the bill is maybe $500. It's a hefty bill but doable for regular people. In the US the bill is hundreds of thousands and you are lucky if your insurance pays half of it! If you have say $200.000 to pay it's the same if you are working or not because regular people need to work for a decade or so to earn such money. Elsewhere in the world people have PAID SICK LEAVE so not being able to work isn't an issue, but the US doesn't even have paid vacation by law because it's an oligarchy.

In the US, the patient with standard insurance pays an amount that is set by their policy, with a yearly maximum for all medical expenses (usually including prescription drugs). Mine, for example, is $6500 this year, which qualifies for your description of hefty but doable. Above that the insurance company pays everything. Also, the hospital and doctors have standard arrangements that result in most of those skyhigh bills being written off, with actual bill being much less.  Which means most people in the US don't need to worry about that type of bill.

The people who do get stuck with  those  skyhigh bills are people with no insurance at all, or insurance that intentionally and explicitly covers only routine, minor medical care (and so in effect have no insurance).   And, as I said before, it's the  people with no insurance that are the problem. Medicare for All will be good for them, but nobody else.

[71 dB]

You don't seem to understand that the people who voted for Trump because he claimed to be a populist will never vote for Bernie or any other progressive candidate, and they won't vote for him precisely because he's a leftist. As far as Trump voters are concerned, Sanders, Warren, and the Young Turks are an integral part of the elite. They are the fake populists in the eyes of Trump voters, and they blame the elites for Trump's failure to fulfill his promises. They don't blame Trump.

Which is why the claim that Bernie can defeat Trump is fantasy.

Edit: btw, a very large proportion of Trump voters in 2016 were people who don't normally vote.

Do you have any evidence for these claims of yours or is this just how you feel and mistake it for facts? Many Trump voters say they would have voted for Bernie in 2016 had it been Bernie vs Trump. Sure, there are those who will never vote for Bernie, but nobody needs 100 % of the votes, just enough from right places to win the electorate. Just like Trump did in 2016 despite of being deeply hated by half of the population.

You tell me every day how I don't understand this or that while yourself demostrating total ignorance about what kind of political era the US is in. It's not 1992 anymore. That's when what you say actually was true, but the US is in totally different era now. In an era where populist candidates win elections. The Dems didn't realize this in 2016 and lost. If they fail to realize it again we have to endure 4 more years of Trump! Not only that, but the US will become a fascist shithole where half of people don't have healthcare nor education while 1000 richest families rob all the money. You want that? For once try to see things OUTSIDE your corporate bubble and recognize people from other countries can offer insight.

[ritter]

Has 71db ever actually been to the US? Does he know what the living conditions in e.g., upstate New York, Florida, Indiana, you name it, are?  The "1000 families" quip appears to reflect complete ignorance of US demographics, I'm afraid...

[71 dB]

In the US, the patient with standard insurance pays an amount that is set by their policy, with a yearly maximum for all medical expenses (usually including prescription drugs). Mine, for example, is $6500 this year, which qualifies for your description of hefty but doable. Above that the insurance company pays everything. Also, the hospital and doctors have standard arrangements that result in most of those skyhigh bills being written off, with actual bill being much less.  Which means most people in the US don't need to worry about that type of bill.

The people who do get stuck with  those  skyhigh bills are people with no insurance at all, or insurance that intentionally and explicitly covers only routine, minor medical care (and so in effect have no insurance).   And, as I said before, it's the  people with no insurance that are the problem. Medicare for All will be good for them, but nobody else.

Well, $6500 is pretty hard to pay for most people if you ask me (about half of Americans make $30.000 a year of less). I said $500 is doable. That doesn't mean 13 times more is doable. Also, the insurance doesn't always cover everything above. If the bill is $100.000, your insurence provider might arque the care you got is actully only worth $55.000 and refuses to pay more than that. Sometimes you may be able to negotiate with the hospital to reduce the bill (say from $100.000 to "only" $80.000) so $25.000 falls on to you to pay. That's doable only for people doing very well. For most it is the net income of one year. You probably have your insurance from your employer and your healthcare is in good order seen from American perspective. In other countries with universal single payer healthcare this is abyssmal. We don't have shit like this. For example the yearly maximum for drugs in Finland this year is 577.66 euros (about $600) after which you pay 2.50 euros for any drug product. Even this makes some people feel this is too much for poor people (and it is), but far from the horrors people experience in the US.

[71 dB]

Has 71db ever actually been to the US?

Yes, I have been to the US back in 1982 when I was just 11. In Florida. It was really cool! When my family flew to US, John Williams the movie composer was in the same plane returning home as he had a concert gig in Helsinki. Unfortunately I was too young to appeciate it, but my father recognized him after having read about the concert in the newspaper. 0:)

[ritter]

Nice memories! 

[71 dB]

Nice memories! 

Indeed! The Walt Disney World, Cape Canaveral Space Center, swimming in the Gulf of Mexico (we where staying in Belleair near Tampa), lot's of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! Pac-Man toys! 16 TV channels! (Finland had two back then). We where guests of my late uncle who worked in Nokia and was appointed to oversees for a few years.

The oligarchy in the US "started" in the late 70's and wasn't that bad in early 80's and Reagan's "trickle down economics lie" presidency had only just started. I was of course too young to understand anything of this, in fact I have come to know and understand these thing only lately while following US politics because of Trump.

Does he know what the living conditions in e.g., upstate New York, Florida, Indiana, you name it, are?  The "1000 families" quip appears to reflect complete ignorance of US demographics, I'm afraid...

Living conditions vary from state to state and between socioeconomic classes, much more than in other western countries. You can find any kind of places within the US. Alabama is very different from California for example. It doesn't matter what the living condition are on a certain place because this is not about the governor of New York for example but the president of the United States.

The three richest families in the US own as much wealth as the bottom half (165 million people) of Americans so the idea that the 1000 richest families someday own pretty much everything isn't crazy. It's where uncontrolled oligarchy leads. Trump's tax cuts certainly advanced this: Over 80 % of the benefits went to the top 1%.

From 1989 to 2018 the top 1 % increased its total net worth by $21 trillion. The bottom 50 % saw its net worth decrease by $900 billion over the same period in 2018 dollars.

[Karl Henning]

They are nice memories.

But if I had been to Finland when I was 11, i should not from that visit understand all that much about Suomi.

[71 dB]

They are nice memories.

But if I had been to Finland when I was 11, i should not from that visit understand all that much about Suomi.

As I said, my understanding of the US society and politics is not at all based on my visit in Florida at age 11, but following US politics online for three years now. So, my visit to US didn't help me understand the country, but since I was asked I answered. The point is we have this thing called the internet. I don't need to be physically in New York to know about AOC. A few articles and videos online is enough to tell me what kind of politician she is and based on what some people say about her prove I understand her policies much better than many Americans. Some people are just astonishly clueless about politics, everywhere in the World Finland included, but it is especially true in the US thanks to the oligarchy and how the media is bought by the top 1 % to keep people clueless. The internet has changed that and oligarchs don't have monopoly on media anymore. There is also TYT, Kyle Kulinski etc. to tell about things from different perspective. It's just the question of which channels people discover and follow. There's also alt-right channels, people like Alex Jones.

Surely there are aspects to US politics that I don't know well enough, but I don't speak about thing concerning those things. I write about the "no-brainer" things that are easy to understand even for foreigners. The oligarchy in the US has created cruelty that is appalling to many here in the Europe and for example the need to move to a single payer healthcare system is a no-brainer. The US is the richest country in the World, but still half of the people make $30.000 a year or less? People working full time, even multiple jobs can't make the ends meet? Wow. That is pathetic. Clearly the US is doing something very wrong and is far from it's full potential as a society. The US should be the greatest country in the World. Instead Nordic countries kick it's ass in almost every aspect except for obesity, amount of people in prisons and size/power of military. In those things the US truly is number one. Congratulations! Meanwhile even in Slovenia, a country with 40 % of the GDP per capita of the US, people have tuition free education and healthcare. In the US the corporate media keeps asking "how are you going to pay for it?" Easy: Make the rich pay their fair share of taxes and use them on socially beneficial things instead of enriching the military industry. It is a choice. What are your priorities? Do you want to enrich the military industry? Do you want more wars? Do you want to make the middle east even more unstable? Do you want ISIS to regain it's power? If you say 'yes' then someone like Biden is your candidate. If you say 'no' then Bernie is your man. It's that easy. The US politics is so easy because everything is so extreme.