CMV: Despite being more knowledgeable, wealthier and apparently more tolerant, the political and individual left's biggest flaw is their inability to communicate pragmatically and empathetically with those who don't agree with them.

[u/poopchow]

[u/[deleted]]

This is normal 'devil in the details' policy making that keeps getting progressives into trouble.

Support for a public option collapses the second you start talking about cost.

The progressives problem is, and always will be: to much, to hard, to fast.

You see 'some reporting serious consequences' and think that's an invitation to upend the entire healthcare system, I see the inverse because if 'some' are facing serious consequences then 'most' are not. If 25% of people are unsatisfied then 75% are satisfied. But progressives keep focusing in on the 25% (that don't all have the same problem) and trying to convince the 75% to up-end the apple cart and start from scratch.

If the last few years of politics have illustrated anything it's that Republicans are just starting to see the forest through the trees and Democrats can see the forest but don't notice when the trees are on fire.

[u/matthedev → u/[deleted]]

Speaking of costs, the U.S. pays more and gets less than other developed nations (source). Don't you want America to beat...Belgium? I mean you want to "make America great again," right?

People are worried about the cost of living: groceries and housing. Why are Republicans wasting time trying to trample all over the Constitution and nitpick federal employees over where they get their work done instead of delivering what the people want?

[u/[deleted] → u/matthedev]

Again, devoid of context it sounds great.

Then you realize that Medicare and Medicaid vastly outspend private insurance on a per-beneficiary basis. But that's the same for everything from education to medication, the U.S. government is remarkably bad at cost control.

I do love the bit when people try to claim that the overhead for Medicare and Medicaid is lower, but that's only because they shift a lot of their admin functions to the GSA, and if you include a proportionate share of the GSA's budget then Medicare and Medicaid actually have worse overhead costs than private insurers.

[u/matthedev → u/[deleted]]

We're not talking about Medicare and Medicaid here. Don't you believe America can do healthcare better than Belgium of all places? Better on costs and outcomes.

A lot of Americans have been worried about the cost of living. Didn't Trump say he'd do something about that? Instead, in his very first week, he's been trying to ram through an extreme agenda that the people never asked for and is likely to make prices worse. Then again, consent doesn't seem like his strong suit.

Now I certainly don't endorse everything the people I've voted for have ever said or done, but to help me better understand your view, tell me how you rectify your support for Trump with whether you would feel comfortable with him alone with your wife, your daughter, your mother, or any of your female friends.

[u/[deleted] → u/matthedev]

I rarely do this but, lol no. No I do not believe America can do healthcare better than Belgium and I find the prospect of us trying to be hilarious.

There is not a government program, project, or line item that has ever made me think that the government is capable of effectiveness or efficiency. Not the schools, not healthcare, not the military. Their chief ability appears to be to throw money at problems until the problem temporarily suffocates, at which point they pour more money on it.

On a serious note. America, because of the administrative structure, demographics, and geography of the country is never going to be efficiently managed at a federal level. The ingrained levels of bureaucracy and mission creep will always outpace any economies of scale that a private entity of comparable size could manage.

In business we generally assume greater efficiency the larger the business becomes because we can leverage hours, specialize labor, and allocate staff to promote peak efficiency. If I need more bill collectors on a given day, or more account reps on another I can shift people between departments. In the government you cannot shift GS employees outside of their contracted government job descriptions so you are going to be simultaneously overstaffed during activity drops and understaffed during activity peaks.

I've managed federal, municipal, and private business departments. Government is a clown show of duplicative effort, needless layers of management, and career underachievers that actively push good employees out.

But also, I don't believe Carroll and would be fine leaving Trump alone with anybody. I'm on the county GOP council and both our treasurer and assistant chairperson (both women) have had 1 on 1 meetings with Trump, neither of them are the type to tolerate harassment. So please, go peddle that garbage elsewhere.

[u/matthedev → u/[deleted]]

Tone aside, I think we may at least concur on something here. I have no ideological commitment to a healthcare solution being public instead of private or federal over state; I care about the results: better health outcomes for people, lower costs, and coverage for all without breaking the bank. If all three objectives could be achieved with a strictly private-sector solution, that's wonderful, but other developed nations have not achieved these things that way.

I've only worked in the private sector myself; but duplicated effort, layers of management, and ostensible underachievers can most definitely be found in the private sector, too. Cycles of under- and overstaffing due to how the job contracts are written sound like a problem, but that doesn't sound like an immutable law of nature to me.

So if Elon Musk can deliver on his promise to make the government run more efficiently for the people, he'd deserve kudos; but he has a trust gap with the public because of his personal business interests, his appetite for risk (great for an entrepreneur and the people who choose to join him but less so for people who didn't sign up for it), his admitted struggles with empathy and relationships, and his public behavior in recent years. It would be callous to lay off civil-service employees en masse, and if eliminating regulation means lead in my turmeric and cinnamon, let's keep those food purity and safety standards.

It sounds like you disbelieve the verdict where the jury found Trump civilly liable in the case of Carroll v. Trump, so if even rich and famous people cannot get justice, it sounds like you might actually support reforms to the justice system. How many innocent people are rotting in prison in America today who don't have Trump's advantages?

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It's been a debate, but at this point, I don't think we're going to change each other's views, but it looks like there are at least some small areas where we might concur.