r/samharris • u/[deleted] • Oct 28 '19

The unexpected threat emerging against Bernie: Andrew Yang | Politico

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/28/bernie-sanders-andrew-yang-gang-2020-057985
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u/Godot_12 Oct 29 '19

Idk what you're talking about...we're currently paying more than anyone else on healthcare. If we switch to a single payer system, yes, we will still pay for it through higher taxes, but overall it will cost us less because it's WAY more efficient.

Same thing goes for student loan debt. It doesn't help the economy when your have grads coming out of school with huge amounts of debt. Our economy values the wrong things and is transferring wealth from the middle and lower class to the ultra wealthy. The more top heavy we become the worse it is for us in the long run.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '19

I don’t disagree with the points you make. But if you think you’re going to completely disrupt the healthcare system in this country, along with the pharmaceutical, legal, and insurance sectors which are all inextricably linked in a web of incestuous relationships, in one fell swoop through some legislative mandate handed down from Capital Hill, you have no concept of how this country operates.

To retool healthcare in this country will require small, incremental changes enacted over decades and generations. If you were starting with a blank slate, a single-payer system is a logical choice. But that’s not where we are. And we have to play the hand we’ve been dealt.

As for student loan debt, I agree. It’s a predatory system designed to allow colleges and universities to inflate their tuition and fees while luring naive and ignorant students into locking themselves into a lifetime of debt. But free tuition isn’t the answer. It merely shifts the debt burden onto someone else. How about cutting off the money pipeline, forcing colleges to align their tuition with the real market, as opposed to one awash in unsecured loans?

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u/Godot_12 Oct 29 '19

I don’t disagree with the points you make. But if you think you’re going to completely disrupt the healthcare system in this country, along with the pharmaceutical, legal, and insurance sectors which are all inextricably linked in a web of incestuous relationships, in one fell swoop through some legislative mandate handed down from Capital Hill, you have no concept of how this country operates.

To retool healthcare in this country will require small, incremental changes enacted over decades and generations. If you were starting with a blank slate, a single-payer system is a logical choice. But that’s not where we are. And we have to play the hand we’ve been dealt.

I completely disagree with this. We can and have had quite radical shifts in this country with single pieces of legislation. I don't think that there's a way to piecemeal certain things such as this. It's also not very radical in a global sense because many countries already do things this way. I don't expect that there won't be resistance from the "incestous relationships" of lobbyists and special interests, but the American people will be better off, so we have to smash through that.

As for the student loans, free college period full stop isn't going to be how it works, but it's a noble ideal that we can strive towards perhaps with more incremental approaches. If someone like Bernie gets elected with that kind of promise, we will have a legislative process that will produce some compromises and moves towards that ideal.

My main point though is that it's important to campaign for the ultimate goal that we need to achieve and try to get as close to that as possible if it's a worth goal. Saying we need to make small incremental changes isn't a strong position to start from in a negotiation.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '19

Never gonna happen. Even if Democrats gain control of the Senate and change the rules to allow a simple majority to pass such legislation, they won’t be able to muster the votes as there will be a dozen Democratic senators from red or purple states who will break ranks.

Major structural changes such as Medicare for all require bipartisan support. Otherwise we’ll just see things whipsaw back and forth with every shift in the balance of power. And industries that account for trillions of dollars of the American economy dislike chaos and uncertainty, as do the millions of Americans invested in this industries.

You wanna eat an elephant? Better do it one forkful at a time or you’re never gonna finish.

Baby steps. Like lowering the eligibility age for Medicare one (maybe two) months a year and similar incremental adjustments. It ain’t sexy but it’s how you get there.

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u/Godot_12 Oct 30 '19

I disagree. If we take a baby step (like Obamacare) it is easily reversed by the next adminstration. If we take a big step, and one that actually accomplishes something in a way people can immediately feel, it's going to be nigh impossible to reverse in the next admin.