Who won the Sanders-Clinton healthcare debate?

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

Well? I'd say Sanders

[YPestis25]

Sanders, but Clinton I think negated that with the gun exchange.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Hillary is so weak with her the ACA is fine, and it'd be too hard to make any real changes to it anyways argument.

[Pyro]

Clinton is a moron for coming out against single-payer.
It's damaging her campaign and had her lose against Sanders in the argument.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Clinton is a moron for coming out against single-payer.
It's damaging her campaign and had her lose against Sanders in the argument.

Not really. Single-payer will not pass in the current political climate and reopening the debate after banking a significant (and contentious) win with Obamacare would hurt the Democratic Party. Makes sense to me.

[exopolitician]

Sanders.

They way she argued against Sanders plan by
 saying he'd want to start over (then kissing Obama's ass for no reason) killed it for me.

[Trapsy]

Hillary could easily kill Bernie on this issue.

[Mr. Smith]

Clinton.

Sanders has the right idea, but he struggled to explain how he'd get it working without backlash.

Clinton bringing up her own struggles with it and all the repeal attempts and backlash was quite smart, you'd have to be hack  to call that weak. She didn't say she was against it, only against it with the way things are.

Is it a bitter pill to swallow? Yes. Do I trust Clinton to follow through again when things are more favorable but it's still a bit of a risk? No. But she still won.

[Ebsy]

Clinton by a mile and a half, simply because Sanders could not articulate how he was going to accomplish a single payer system. He said nothing to combat her remarks that it would be impossible to get through Congress or that the American people wouldn't understand why he was abandoning Obamacare.

[RFayette]

Sanders has a very salient point long-term:  assuming his figures and plan are accurate, middle-class voters will experience an average of ~$5000 savings on health insurance in exchange for a $500 tax increase.  However, Clinton is right about the path dependency of healthcare reform and how making big structural changes at once can cause problems, especially after the system had already been overhauled less than a decade ago.  I'd lean Sanders on this one though.

[Virginiá]

Clinton is a moron for coming out against single-payer.
It's damaging her campaign and had her lose against Sanders in the argument.

Not really. Single-payer will not pass in the current political climate and reopening the debate after banking a significant (and contentious) win with Obamacare would hurt the Democratic Party. Makes sense to me.

Thank you! We couldn't even get the public option when PPACA was going through the motions, and now I'm supposed to believe we can get Sanders' plan through what will most likely be a divided Congress?

That's not even the worst part (at least to me). Did everyone forget (or not even realize to begin with) how badly the Affordable Care Act hurt Democrats in the following years? If by some miracle they took back Congress with a supermajority in the Senate, are we really going to throw it away again like this? What Democrats will want to risk losing reelection once the sh**t inevitably hits the fan? It's silly, and we have so many more issues that need attention.

Healthcare had it's turn, and it cost Democrats massive losses. It's time to move on to other critical issues. This little debate on single payer is completely pointless.

[Ebsy]

Sanders has a very salient point long-term:  assuming his figures and plan are accurate, middle-class voters will experience an average of ~$5000 savings on health insurance in exchange for a $500 tax increase.  However, Clinton is right about the path dependency of healthcare reform and how making big structural changes at once can cause problems, especially after the system had already been overhauled less than a decade ago.  I'd lean Sanders on this one though.

Not a safe assumption, and the whole plan is premised on ignoring the >6% payroll tax increase that we all know will just be passed on through lower wages.

[RFayette]

Sanders has a very salient point long-term:  assuming his figures and plan are accurate, middle-class voters will experience an average of ~$5000 savings on health insurance in exchange for a $500 tax increase.  However, Clinton is right about the path dependency of healthcare reform and how making big structural changes at once can cause problems, especially after the system had already been overhauled less than a decade ago.  I'd lean Sanders on this one though.

Not a safe assumption, and the whole plan is premised on ignoring the >6% payroll tax increase that we all know will just be passed on through lower wages.

Good point....Sanders's figure likely didn't take the wage-lowering effects of the payroll tax hike when discussing the tax impact on the middle class.  That changes the calculus quite a bit:  a family with a household income of $50,000 would lose 3K in wages plus the $500 tax hike.  This makes it unlikely to be cost-effective for those who collect a paycheck.

[Averroës Nix]

Sanders has a very salient point long-term:  assuming his figures and plan are accurate, middle-class voters will experience an average of ~$5000 savings on health insurance in exchange for a $500 tax increase.  However, Clinton is right about the path dependency of healthcare reform and how making big structural changes at once can cause problems, especially after the system had already been overhauled less than a decade ago.  I'd lean Sanders on this one though.

Not a safe assumption, and the whole plan is premised on ignoring the >6% payroll tax increase that we all know will just be passed on through lower wages.

Not necessarily. There's actually mixed evidence on the extent to which changes in insurance premiums are passed on to employers. If that were the only tax increase necessary to support Sanderscare, I think it would be a highly defensible one.

[Lief 🗽]

The problem with Sanders plan is that it assumes GIGANTIC cost savings simply from taking private insurers out of the picture. And sure, there's some "wasted money" there, from things like advertising and profits and executive salaries. But it's hardly a huge cost driver in our system. If you want prices like you've got in Europe, then you need HUGE cuts in payments to hospitals and doctors. You don't need Medicare for all, you need Medicaid for all. And that means bankrupting tons of rural hospitals, tons of doctors quitting because their salaries are going to be decimated, and it means a significantly lower standard of care than a lot of middle-class and upper-middle class people are used to.

Alternatively, you can not go after these massive cost savings, but then you'll either need much higher taxes than Bernie is calling for OR gigantic deficits.

[Young Conservative]

Clinton is a moron for coming out against single-payer.
It's damaging her campaign and had her lose against Sanders in the argument.

Not really. Single-payer will not pass in the current political climate and reopening the debate after banking a significant (and contentious) win with Obamacare would hurt the Democratic Party. Makes sense to me.

She's trying to run for the long haul...

[Averroës Nix]

The problem with Sanders plan is that it assumes GIGANTIC cost savings simply from taking private insurers out of the picture. And sure, there's some "wasted money" there, from things like advertising and profits and executive salaries. But it's hardly a huge cost driver in our system. If you want prices like you've got in Europe, then you need HUGE cuts in payments to hospitals and doctors. You don't need Medicare for all, you need Medicaid for all. And that means bankrupting tons of rural hospitals, tons of doctors quitting because their salaries are going to be decimated, and it means a significantly lower standard of care than a lot of middle-class and upper-middle class people are used to.

Alternatively, you can not go after these massive cost savings, but then you'll either need much higher taxes than Bernie is calling for OR gigantic deficits.

That's the rub. And it's not as though those cost savings are actually impossible to achieve (at least if we're talking about a universe in which single payer is somehow politically plausible). But Sanders would need to talk about reducing the cost of medical school, increasing the number of medical students, relying more heavily on physicians assistants and nurse practitioners, reducing costly variation in care, building on other cost-reduction measures that were in the Affordable Care Act, etc.

[Ebsy]

Also, beyond the tax increases on lower earners, I think the gigantic tax increases on the rich are a bitter pill to swallow, even for someone who generally supports higher taxes on the wealthy. I think there would be a real possibility of high earners fleeing and taking their tax dollars with them.

[Pyro]

Clinton is a moron for coming out against single-payer.
It's damaging her campaign and had her lose against Sanders in the argument.

Not really. Single-payer will not pass in the current political climate and reopening the debate after banking a significant (and contentious) win with Obamacare would hurt the Democratic Party. Makes sense to me.

With that logic, why try to accomplish any political goals? I'm not a Democrat myself, but most of my libby friends prefer Sanders because he's willing to stand his ground against Wall Street and the Right instead of immediately folding into pressure and offering to "reach across the aisle" as Obama has done. This middle-of-the-road stuff isn't going to work with the base.

[Ebsy]

With that logic, why try to accomplish any political goals? I'm not a Democrat myself, but most of my libby friends prefer Sanders because he's willing to stand his ground against Wall Street and the Right instead of immediately folding into pressure and offering to "reach across the aisle" as Obama has done. This middle-of-the-road stuff isn't going to work with the base.

You're making the mistake of assuming that the Republican base and the Democratic base are basically the same. Nothing could be further from the truth.

[Pyro]

Also, beyond the tax increases on lower earners, I think the gigantic tax increases on the rich are a bitter pill to swallow, even for someone who generally supports higher taxes on the wealthy. I think there would be a real possibility of high earners fleeing and taking their tax dollars with them.

lol, relax. It's calling for a tax rate lower than it was under Reagan. No one's going anywhere.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Clinton is a moron for coming out against single-payer.
It's damaging her campaign and had her lose against Sanders in the argument.

Not really. Single-payer will not pass in the current political climate and reopening the debate after banking a significant (and contentious) win with Obamacare would hurt the Democratic Party. Makes sense to me.

With that logic, why try to accomplish any political goals? I'm not a Democrat myself, but most of my libby friends prefer Sanders because he's willing to stand his ground against Wall Street and the Right instead of immediately folding into pressure and offering to "reach across the aisle" as Obama has done. This middle-of-the-road stuff isn't going to work with the base.

"We can't do anything progressive because of the eeevvviiiillll Republicans, so vote for me!" is a strategy that seems to have outworn its welcome with the liberal base. What's even more troubling is that Clinton and her team don't seem to have realized that.

[Sorenroy]

The problem with Sanders plan is that it assumes GIGANTIC cost savings simply from taking private insurers out of the picture. And sure, there's some "wasted money" there, from things like advertising and profits and executive salaries. But it's hardly a huge cost driver in our system. If you want prices like you've got in Europe, then you need HUGE cuts in payments to hospitals and doctors. You don't need Medicare for all, you need Medicaid for all. And that means bankrupting tons of rural hospitals, tons of doctors quitting because their salaries are going to be decimated, and it means a significantly lower standard of care than a lot of middle-class and upper-middle class people are used to.

Alternatively, you can not go after these massive cost savings, but then you'll either need much higher taxes than Bernie is calling for OR gigantic deficits.

Not disagreeing or even saying your point is false, but in terms of pure overhead, Medicare does far better. It has a three percent overhead compaired to private company's 17 percent.

As a rebuttal to this though (as to represent both sides) a lot of that overhead goes into making sure that the money is used efficiently. It has been estimated that as much as 11% of Medicares budget goes into fraud every year. (The article I got this from is http://www.ahipcoverage.com/2014/01/03/myth-vs-fact-administrative-costs-in-medicare-private-health-plans/ if you want to read the actual thing rather than my trashy summery.)

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Clinton is a moron for coming out against single-payer.
It's damaging her campaign and had her lose against Sanders in the argument.

Not really. Single-payer will not pass in the current political climate and reopening the debate after banking a significant (and contentious) win with Obamacare would hurt the Democratic Party. Makes sense to me.

With that logic, why try to accomplish any political goals? I'm not a Democrat myself, but most of my libby friends prefer Sanders because he's willing to stand his ground against Wall Street and the Right instead of immediately folding into pressure and offering to "reach across the aisle" as Obama has done. This middle-of-the-road stuff isn't going to work with the base.

"We can't do anything progressive because of the eeevvviiiillll Republicans, so vote for me!" is a strategy that seems to have outworn its welcome with the liberal base. What's even more troubling is that Clinton and her team don't seem to have realized that.

We can get into the politics of it, and you may be right that it's a losing strategy. But what's good politics doesn't always mesh with reality. And your hypothetical dialogue is actually, well, correct. I'm not saying that it's better to have no goals, but I come from the camp that believes transactional politics and incremental change is the way to go. What's wrong with keeping the framework of the ACA in place and finding a way to begin creatively solving some of the country's current health care problems using something like the Maryland model O'Malley mentioned?

I don't know all the details of what's possible, I'll admit that. But I maintain that starting from scratch with the goal of accomplishing something that will never be accomplished is silly and bad for the party. It's basically the equivalent of Donald Trump's wall. And what will end up happening is people's expectations will be built up, as they were for Obama's presidency in '08, and then reality will set in and Bernie will look like a disappointing wet noodle. It's all just a big lie (which is why I hated Obama passionately for almost seven years—there was this fantastical groundswell around him that propelled him to the White House except, in reality, it was based on nothing).

[Trapsy]

Andrea Mitchell: "You’ve released a very detailed plan."
Bernie Sanders: “It’s not all that detailed…”