Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Is it too soon to be talking 2020?

Biden has upped his delegate lead over Sanders to 1121-839 with around 55 more delegates to be awarded in Florida and Illinois. Arizona to come later tonight.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/democratic_delegate_count.html

Nobody is denying that the ACA got a major backlash after it passed. We are talking about why. Personally, I kept the same employer-paid insurance I had before it passed. The only difference was that they had to cover pre-existing conditions. As far as I can tell, that is still true today. Trump has added in short term policies that don't, but most people are not stupid enough to buy those. (So why is the heart patient son no longer covered?)

As for the Democrats backing off and delaying passing it, I recall that congressional Republicans were furiously amending it before it passed. Democrats in congress had every reason to think many of those who had modified large parts of it would vote for it. But they all made the last minute Hasturd-style turn against it. Then Republicans labelled it "Obama-Care" and demonized it, even though they wrote a lot of it, including Romney inspiring it. I think you have fallen for their narrative of events, but I remember exactly when I started seeing all the racist Obama derivatives on the internet.

That right there. And it's something I'm hearing more and more of.

But neither side wants to go first. The nation is right now on its knees and congress is having to act...

Republicans are concerned that giving help to workers will make them lazy and greedy so the Democrats have compromised.

Then some abortion rider was tacked onto it by the Senate...

Republicans have tried to capitalize on the opportunity this virus presented to further some unpopular goals...

See...?

But then trump wants to send everyone a check...In a mass attempt to buy votes and put the bill on the national debt.

Perhaps, as things continue to deteriorate, they will be forced to actually come together for the good of the nation.

...in the fullness of time...

Not at UCLA, which is the "Center of Excellence" type facility that he needs for his particular heart issues. Believe me, there are a great many hospitals that are MUCH closer, but they are not able to do the kind of work he will need in the future, and he loses his cardiologist who was already studying his case long before we even moved back to the LA area. Daryl's heart issues are pretty rare, even among other Fontan patients, because he was among the first to GET the procedure at The Cleveland Clinic, and his particular case carried several heretofore unseen complications.
Dr. Roger Mee, who trained directly under Francis Fontan, for whom the procedure is named, wrote extensively about our son in a medical journal because Daryl's particular case was originally thought to be inoperable. That makes our son almost unique even among Fontan kids.

The chain between Roger Mee, Cynthia Bournemeyer, Claudio Ramaciotti and Leigh Reardon was such that it is doubtful that Daryl would receive the help he needs if he has to seek out another cardiologist.

So sure, we can enroll in PIH, which is a mile and a half from home instead of all the way out in Westwood, but should complications develop, they don't have the kind of training and familiarity with his case that the above doctors have.

So, speaking from a practical sense, this basically leaves him uninsurable unless we want to just shunt him over to some "runt surgeon" who will perhaps have a nodding acquaintance with Fontan issues but who will be unfamiliar with the particular problems Daryl faces.

And here is the mother of all clinkers:
The insurance company that dropped UCLA?

It's "OSCAR".
Guess who used to run Oscar?

Jared Kushner Once Controlled a Firm Now Running a Coronavirus Testing Website



In eighteen months he might be allowed to get Medicare due to his permanent adult disability. Hopefully there won't be any complications between now and then, IF he even GETS his SSI Medicare.
UCLA has already informed us they will accept it.

But for the interim, we're up the creek without a paddle unless he just needs to get checked out for a common cold.

Medi-Cal has yet to get back to us as to whether they can cover his issues, which might include a transplant. We've been going back and forth with them for four months.

Believe me, arguing with insurance has been an almost twice or thrice weekly routine for us for his entire adult life.
At least when he was a child he was covered by either S-CHIP or CHAMPVA. All that ended on his eighteenth birthday.

Yes, CHAMPVA was never made fully ACA compliant.
Know why?
Republicans.

Disabled Vet Health Insurance Loophole Leaves Some Without Coverage


Since Daryl's eighteenth birthday we've spent nearly sixty thousand dollars paying out of pocket for his health insurance, which would have been provided by CHAMPVA if the Republican controlled Congress had ever bothered to close that loophole.

The way I see it, Republicans owe my disabled vet wife 60 grand.

So democrats let themselves get flim-flammed into believing they had votes that they didn't. It wasn't a great bill and probably should have been shelved since it had been gutted anyway. Hindsight is 20/20 though. I was against it because it didn't go far enough, but I was glad that it passed. The next step will be MFA and it's coming to a theater near you soon! Maybe not exactly in our lifetimes, but soon.

And even then it will be hobbled by Republican insistence that a small group of rich men should get a cut of the healthcare money without any connection to the actual healthcare taking place.

Yeah, I think in today's era of polarization, ultra high partisanship, party first politics is one reason both major parties are shrinking, independents, swing voter increasing. In 2006 independents, swing voters made up 30% of the electorate, today if one goes by Gallup, they're at 41%. Most do want the two parties to work together, whenever possible. There are some issues that there can never be compromise on. But I would say 90% of them could be if the willingness was there.

The problem may be two fold. When the two parties worked together, each party had their liberal and conservative wings. The old Rockefeller liberal Republicans of the northeast and the conservative democrats of the south. Both parties shed their unwanted wings since then and are in the process of shedding their more moderate members. Only pure ideologues need now apply for membership in the two parties.

It use to be that each party and their leaders respected each other, they both recognized that both parties wanted a secure, free and prosperous America, only the paths differed somewhat. There wasn't the hate between parties or each party branding the other party this nation's number one enemy. If Reagan and Tip O'Neal could work together, so too could the parties leaders of today. But they don't want to. If you go back pre-2000 you would discover party line voting was very rare. Today it's the normal thing.

Oh well..if the two parties can't come together to tackle this corona virus without political rancor, they never will. Each is too busy blaming the other. Life goes on the best it can.

I also have no doubt at sometime in the future MFA will be the law of the land. Many hurdles to be jumped over, but it will happen. Given time and when a majority of Americans are for it, want it. It will pass with pretty much bipartisan support then.

Americans were ready for Medicare and wanted it. Medicare votes in Congress – Over 60% of the American Public was in favor of Medicare before it was introduced to congress in 1965.

House – Democrats 237 AYE 48 NAY – Republicans 70 AYE 68 NAY
Senate – Democrats 57 AYE 7 NAY – Republicans 13 AYE 17 NAY

Compare the ACA to Medicare when it was introduced to congress – Only 35% of the American Public was in favor of the ACA and 58% against.

House – Democrats 220 AYE 36 NAY – Republicans 0 AYE 179 NAY
Senate – Democrats 60 AYE 0 NAY – Republicans 0 AYE 39 NAY

Medicare, pretty much a two party affair, pretty much bipartisan. The ACA, only a one party affair. I was really amazed the Democrats would go against the majority of Americans wishes. But they did, then came November 2010.

It sounds like technocratic incrementalism using polls.
Without taking into account the dominant structures of media and political capitalism polls will only reflect the desired outcomes of those structures.

Like wood planers- garbage in, garbage out.
Garbage in would be concentrated, coordinated media narratives, voter suppression suc as the closure of 1500 polling locations since 2016 in predominantly working class precincts, and overt demobilization of voters with the exception of the historically dominant class. Today’s being the white aging boomer population.
In short, your polls are simply a desired outcome of the prevailing power structures.

A universal healthcare system centered around patient restoration has been talked about for 75 years. Without a political framework to undertake that, regardless of its popularity with the public, it will have no mechanism to get it implemented. Both parties have taken it off the table in exchange for corporate political patronage.

Public approval has almost no effect on political outcomes. Politics chief aim is to support its patrons while lowering expectations for the citizenry. The current Democratic front runner’s political career exemplifies that situation.

I’m a big fan of Sheldon Woolin’s ‘Inverted Totalitarianism’ To describe the state being a corporate state or corporate fascism.

Basically, IMO, polls are simply a reflection of the desired outcome of the corporate state as it relates to the two political factions as the only choices.

One question, how is one to know how or what the people want or don't want if you don't ask them? Polling serves that purpose. It's true that a poll, any poll will only tell you what the people want or not want, like or dislike at the time the poll was take. Things change and a week or two or a month or a year, thing can be completely different.

Perhaps there are people who don't want to know what folks think. Just push what that one person wants on all others regardless of what all others think or want?

If one delves deep enough into the polls, they can give you not only numbers but provide reasons to include how and why. But one must go beyond the headlines.

Here's an example poll, taken on 10 March which provides tons of information on a huge range of topics. I find it very useful and informative.

https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/vrbl9mmctz/econTabReport.pdf

The latest delegate count which includes Arizona. Arizona, Florida and Illinois still have an additional 50 delegates to award between them which will come once the final count has been confirmed.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/democratic_delegate_count.html

With Ohio and Georgia primaries cancelled and push back into late May and early June, is this the last of the primary elections we'll have? We have Hawaii, Alaska and Wyoming scheduled for 4 Apr, Wisconsin on 7 Apr and then Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island on 28 Apr. Will they get pushed back into May and or June? The Democratic Convention is in July.