Trump: GOP will become "workers' party"

[Wisconsin+17]

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The problem is this. I've lived under a single payer system and been in a situation similar to yours. My grandmother fell and injured her back. It took a year and a half for her to get treatment because of the wait list. She died, shortly after her name came up.

Single payer sounds great but doesn't work. The answer is lower taxes so that people like you can save to protect your families. Obamacare is unaffordable for most people.

[Badger]

How in the ever-loving name of Jesus tap-dancing Christ do you think lowering people's tax rates, even as much as a couple dollars a week (real money to most people), is going to address the kind of catastrophic health care coverage Fuzzy talked about? How on earth would address those working and earning too much for Medicaid but too little to afford free-market insurance?!?

There are alternatives to single payer and the "low tax savings accounts" silliness you proposed. Still, you want anecdotes? Fine. I had a Canadian friend who broke his leg in PA and adamantly refused to be admitted to the US healthcare system--particularly it's insurance scheme--and chose to have his friends drive multiple hours back across the border before he went to the hospital. I have Canadian friends and they (gasp) get news up there and am familiar with our "system". And yet none of them--not even the conservatives--would dream of exchanging it.

For that matter, how has Romneycare worked in Massachusetts? Any great call to repeal it? Didn't think so.

Quit using talking points. Your post is bad, and you should feel bad.

[IceSpear]

How in the ever-loving name of Jesus tap-dancing Christ do you think lowering people's tax rates, even as much as a couple dollars a week (real money to most people), is going to address the kind of catastrophic health care coverage Fuzzy talked about? How on earth would address those working and earning too much for Medicaid but too little to afford free-market insurance?!?

There are alternatives to single payer and the "low tax savings accounts" silliness you proposed. Still, you want anecdotes? Fine. I had a Canadian friend who broke his leg in PA and adamantly refused to be admitted to the US healthcare system--particularly it's insurance scheme--and chose to have his friends drive multiple hours back across the border before he went to the hospital. I have Canadian friends and they (gasp) get news up there and am familiar with our "system". And yet none of them--not even the conservatives--would dream of exchanging it.

For that matter, how has Romneycare worked in Massachusetts? Any great call to repeal it? Didn't think so.

Quit using talking points. Your post is bad, and you should feel bad.

[Fuzzy Bear]

How in the ever-loving name of Jesus tap-dancing Christ do you think lowering people's tax rates, even as much as a couple dollars a week (real money to most people), is going to address the kind of catastrophic health care coverage Fuzzy talked about? How on earth would address those working and earning too much for Medicaid but too little to afford free-market insurance?!?

There are alternatives to single payer and the "low tax savings accounts" silliness you proposed. Still, you want anecdotes? Fine. I had a Canadian friend who broke his leg in PA and adamantly refused to be admitted to the US healthcare system--particularly it's insurance scheme--and chose to have his friends drive multiple hours back across the border before he went to the hospital. I have Canadian friends and they (gasp) get news up there and am familiar with our "system". And yet none of them--not even the conservatives--would dream of exchanging it.

For that matter, how has Romneycare worked in Massachusetts? Any great call to repeal it? Didn't think so.

Quit using talking points. Your post is bad, and you should feel bad.

Had Romney not ran away from his signature accomplishment and proposed reasonable adjustments/reforms to Obamacare, I may well have voted for him in 2012.  As I live in Florida, that may have helped him out, dontcha think?

I am touched by the concern shown in posts here.  My wife has had a good report; the surgeon believes that they have removed all the cancer, and she will be going for radiation treatment as precautionary.  (She is now in the category of "cancer survivor" and all that implies.)  

I would also mention the situation of my 10 year old son, which is more common.  He is actually my grandson, who we have had to adopt through the Foster Care system, due to "system failure" (to put it mildly) on the part of my son and daughter-in-law.  He requires medication for ADHD (which would cost $200/month out of pocket) and asthma (about the same).  Again, because he has my excellent medical insurance, I'm in good shape here.  And on top of this, because he was adopted through the Foster Care system, he has Medicaid through age 19, which will cover him in whatever state he lives in (though not at the level of my health insurance).  If worst came to worst regarding my job, he'd at least be covered through age 19, even if I move to another state.  

So I am blessed here, but I am also painfully aware of what his situation would be if I did not have these resources for him as well.  If I had no health insurance, and no Obamacare, I might be able to get by with Florida Kid Care, maybe, but not at the level I'm at now.  And that's the level he needs, optimally.  If we had no health insurance, I'd be sunk.  I don't know that I'd be able to afford "family" health insurance, especially at my age.  I don't know what his "preexisting conditions" would cause me.  Perhaps he'd be one of the ADHD kids who receive no needed medication, while their parents pat themselves on the back for not "drugging" their kids as they fail in school.  (Perhaps my religious conservative friends will demonstrate to me how more corporal punishment will get such kids to "pay attention".)  I see this all the time; one of my son's peers has ADHD, but his parents cannot pay for the medication, and the other boy struggles in the school environment.  That boy didn't struggle anywhere near as much when he was on his
medications.  I would kindly suggest that this unmedicated child impacts his entire class.  I don't even want to think of how much dental visits would cost me if he needed extensive dental care.

I am sure that there are a number of registered Republicans who are in the situation I have been (to date) spared from.  The folks whose level of safety are improved by Obamacare.  The folks who Donald Trump talks about as "dying in the streets" without something affirmative done for them.  (Trump recognizes this is a problem, unlike seemingly every other Republican.)  What, then, is the plan for folks like me sans my healthcare?  How do "medical savings accounts" help me, when my real ability to save is seriously limited?  (I should mention that I've worked 2 jobs for the last 6 years for the most part.)  How does it help others in my situation?  What is the conservative definition of "lowering the costs"?  If the cost of a Mercedes Benz is cut by 2/3, I still couldn't afford a new one, so tell me just how this works.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here.  But since 2010, I've heard conservatives (indeed all Republicans) talk about repealing Obamacare, but the only solution I've heard is "lowering costs" and "medical savings accounts" that Steve Forbes can afford, but I can't.  If folks really want to do nothing, leaving everything to the "free market", than I would have more respect for them to just say "Tough noogies!" and remind me that death isn't a preventable accident than the responses I get from the Cruzes and Rubios of the world that would be OK with my wife, my son, and myself doing without hoping for the best.  So I guess I am calling out folks who want to repeal Obamacare and replace it with "lowering the costs", "medical savings accounts" and "market-based solutions" to explain how that would have provided for my family, given the situation we could have been in.  They really do need to explain themselves, if only for the sake of intellectual honesty.

[Fuzzy Bear]

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The problem is this. I've lived under a single payer system and been in a situation similar to yours. My grandmother fell and injured her back. It took a year and a half for her to get treatment because of the wait list. She died, shortly after her name came up.

Single payer sounds great but doesn't work. The answer is lower taxes so that people like you can save to protect your families. Obamacare is unaffordable for most people.

I recognize that heathcare is "rationed".  I recognize that in many single payor systems, an elderly woman needing surgery (for example) will have a long wait, and if it's your grandmother, that's never cool. 

But in America we "ration" healthcare by price.  Money talks and b------- walks.  Let's not kid ourselves.  For millions of Americans needing healthcare, there's no wait; there's just a "no way".  Turning people away from medical procedures they need does cut down the waiting lists.  I am painfully aware of how many other folks needed the lifesaving surgery my wife received due to my being blessed with excellent health insurance, but didn't get it because they didn't have the access to healthcare my wife and I have.  (And we don't have this access because we're such good people; I like to think I'm virtuous, but lots of virtuous people die for lack of medical care in America every year.)

[Angrie]

My wife has had a good report; the surgeon believes that they have removed all the cancer, and she will be going for radiation treatment as precautionary.  (She is now in the category of "cancer survivor" and all that implies.)

Good news!

[RaphaelDLG]

One of my fantasies is an alternative reality where the united states had proportional representation. 

in my fantasy, this allowed for the creation of, alongside the traditional D and R parties, a Christian democratic party for people like fuzzy bear that would not let the R business party co opt working class social conservative people because it was the only SOC con game in town, thereby allowing for such healthcare policies through the vagaries of coalition govt.

Tldr Germany parties in america.  I jack off to Germany's party structure at least once a week.

[Indy Texas]

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The problem is this. I've lived under a single payer system and been in a situation similar to yours. My grandmother fell and injured her back. It took a year and a half for her to get treatment because of the wait list. She died, shortly after her name came up.

Single payer sounds great but doesn't work. The answer is lower taxes so that people like you can save to protect your families. Obamacare is unaffordable for most people.

What country did you live in?

I've noticed that most of the stereotypical single payer problems (wait times, resource shortages) tend to happen in countries that are single provider in addition to being single payer. (Like the UK and other countries where all hospitals and clinics are government-owned and all healthcare workers are government employees.)

[MK]

He could transform the once donor class party to the party of "hard work" pays. Global economic forces have pummeled blue-collar workers more relentlessly than almost any other segment of society, forcing them to compete against hundreds of millions of equally skilled workers throughout the world. No one asked them in the 1990s if this was the future they wanted.  They put trust in liberal democrats and have been stabbed in the back for the sake of globalism.  I think the left somewhat recognizes that the blue-collar worker voting against them could put a halt to their globalist agenda and the identity politics seems to be the tactic right now.  They hope that these voters aren't smart enough to figure it out and vote against their own interest.  Afterall, they've did it in the past. 

[Fuzzy Bear]

He could transform the once donor class party to the party of "hard work" pays. Global economic forces have pummeled blue-collar workers more relentlessly than almost any other segment of society, forcing them to compete against hundreds of millions of equally skilled workers throughout the world. No one asked them in the 1990s if this was the future they wanted.  They put trust in liberal democrats and have been stabbed in the back for the sake of globalism.  I think the left somewhat recognizes that the blue-collar worker voting against them could put a halt to their globalist agenda and the identity politics seems to be the tactic right now.  They hope that these voters aren't smart enough to figure it out and vote against their own interest.  Afterall, they've did it in the past. 

Well, it was George H. W. Bush who negotiated NAFTA (albeit Bill Clinton finishing it up), and George W. Bush who gave us CAFTA.  We can thank Bill Clinton for the WTO (replacing GATT); this is a bi-partisan "gift" to America.  The bi-partisan opposition to these initiatives is telling as well; it's a coalition of Tea Party and Movement Conservative Republicans and the more Liberal Democrats.

[Wisconsin+17]

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You either ration by price or ration by waitlist. Price is horrible, but it's still less bad than not being able to get the care you need.

[StateBoiler]

Said this elsewhere in reference to another topic:

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The Working Families Party of New York is a party that was put in place and largely funded by labor unions that wanted a check on the Democrats becoming too centrist/taking organized labor for granted. They did this via the New York practice of electoral fusion where a party can co-nominate another party's candidate but the votes are counted on their line. So it serves as a check on the major parties from each's wing.

The WFP came out as enthusiastic supporters of Bernie Sanders' bid to win the Democratic Party primary there. Major unions the past couple weeks since the New York primary have stated they have withdrawn their funding of the party (it was quiet for some time because the unions supported Andrew Cuomo for governor in 2014 while WFP activists wanted to nominate a progressive candidate, but the primary seems to have brought this out in the open), saying they've not supported items in New York they state that create jobs and have sacrificed that for progressive causes that have nothing to deal with jobs or helping the economic circumstances of working families.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/lovett-big-n-y-unions-stop-funding-working-families-party-article-1.2604723

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2016/04/8597516/working-families-party-loses-another-constituent-union

It's a point in favor of what's being said. I'm not a union guy but if you're a diehard union man or woman that goes out and does your job for a paycheck for your family, it's honest work and that's commendable. Yet they have been sacrificed for progressive policies. (Organized labor has done horrible under the Obama Administration by organized labor leaders' own statements.) There's two types of "left" that in my opinion don't coexist with each other at all as far as what they want and the policies they pursue: the Labor Left and the Green Left. That excerpt of the article is describing the point of view the Green Left has toward the Labor Left and the Non-unionized Labor Left and Right.[/quote]

Think unions are going to swing toward Trump this election. Not so much labor leaders but the rank-and-file.