Last year Jeb Bush was mocked for claiming he could return the US to 4% growth. So Bernie Sanders is promising 5.3%. https://t.co/YfNtbtDonw
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) February 15, 2016
I know that every Repub candidate gets a free pass on “then a miracle happens” budget proposals, but that’s strictly IOKIYAR in my experience. From the NYTimes article:
With his expansive plans to increase the size and role of government, Senator Bernie Sanders has provoked a debate not only with his Democratic rival for president, Hillary Clinton, but also with liberal-leaning economists who share his goals but question his numbers and political realism.
The reviews of some of these economists, especially on Mr. Sanders’s health care plans, suggest that Mrs. Clinton could have been too conservative in their debate last week when she said that his agenda in total would increase the size of the federal government by 40 percent. That level would surpass any government expansion since the buildup in World War II.
The increase could exceed 50 percent, some experts suggest, based on an analysis by a respected health economist that Mr. Sanders’s single-payer health plan could cost twice what the senator, who represents Vermont, asserts, and on critics’ belief that his economic assumptions are overly optimistic.
His campaign strongly contests both critiques, defending its numbers and attacking prominent critics as Clinton sympathizers and industry consultants…
“The numbers don’t remotely add up,” said Austan Goolsbee, formerly chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, now at the University of Chicago.
Alluding to one progressive analyst’s early criticism of the Sanders agenda as “puppies and rainbows,” Mr. Goolsbee said that after his and others’ further study, “They’ve evolved into magic flying puppies with winning Lotto tickets tied to their collars.”…
Adding $20 trillion to projected federal spending would mean about a 37 percent increase in spending through fiscal year 2026 — close to the 40 percent that Mrs. Clinton suggested. But Kenneth E. Thorpe, a prominent health policy economist at Emory University who advised the Clintons in the 1990s, recently concluded that Mr. Sanders’s health plan would actually cost $27 trillion, not $14 trillion, which would put total spending for all of Mr. Sanders’s initiatives above $30 trillion through 2026…
Mr. Thorpe in recent years helped Gov. Peter E. Shumlin in Mr. Sanders’s home state of Vermont to design a single-payer plan there. It was unsuccessful.
“The problem was that the price tag and the amount of disruption and redistribution was just so enormous,” Mr. Thorpe said of Mr. Shumlin’s efforts, “that he just had to drop it.”
More detail at the link. Again, I don’t have the math skills to argue that Sanders’ plan wouldn’t work — but, given the importance of this election, I don’t want to put the entire Democratic ticket at risk by giving the Media Village Idiots a bonus EvenTheLiberalEconomists! card, either…
5.3% growth isn't the only unrealistic assumption in the Sanders team's health care plan. https://t.co/SLDhcqvSED pic.twitter.com/nbhKLpXjM6
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) February 15, 2016
Scamp Dog
Gahhhh… It’s an asterisk, not an asterick. Please to fix, this kind of thing drives me crazy.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
5.3% is that all!??!?
Baud! is promising 729% percent growth – plus, ponies! ?
Richard Mayhew
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: I don’t want a pony. I want puppies
Suzanne
@Scamp Dog: Yesterday was Valentime’s Day, the best holiday in Febuary.
NR
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-himmelstein/kenneth-thorpe-bernie-sanders-single-payer_b_9113192.html
amk
“With his expansive plans to increase the size and role of government”
hey, fucking nyt. it’s the goppers who do it all the time all over murka. you’re either fucking confused or fucking lying.
Richard Mayhew
I have basically been applying McArdle rules to Sanders campaign proposal. In the areas where I have expertise, his numbers don’t get close enough to argue over assumptions and in areas where trusted experts look at other statements his numbers don’t come close enough to quibble over details and assumptions. I am basically assuming that anything coming out of his campaign is a “hypothetical not a statistic” unless outside validators say the math makes sense.
Comrade Luke
Keep shillin for Hillary, everyone. Keep shilin.
JasonF
I’ll keep shilling for Hillary as long as Sanders thinks good intentions (and I do believe he has the best of intentions) can substitute for workable proposals.
Cacti
Math is an enemy of the revolution and will be first up against the wall.
Jasmine Bleach
Yeah, WTH is an asterick?
But really, every single other industrialized country has something close to single-payer (or at least, government doing a vast majority of the processing), and their health costs are half that per capita than ours and the results are often better.
There’s still 27 million adults uninsured in this country. We should try to do something about that.
Maybe Bernie’s plan ain’t perfect, but it’s in the right direction, and it can be tweaked, as are all plans.
Corner Stone
Gov Strickland just called Chris Hayes “Steve”. Awesome.
MomSense
@JasonF:
My dad switched from Sanders to Clinton. Now I just have to work on my mom and I’ll have the whole family. Good prep for phonebanking
Cacti
@Jasmine Bleach:
What all those countries have is universal healthcare. Single payer is one of the models used, but far from the only one. Is the goal universal healthcare, or chasing the single payer hobby horse?
NR
“In summary, professor Thorpe grossly underestimates the administrative savings under single-payer; posits increases in the number of doctor visits and hospitalizations that exceed the capacity of doctors and hospitals to provide this added care; assumes that the federal government would provide state and local governments with huge windfalls rather than requiring full maintenance of effort; makes no mention of the vast current tax subsidies for private coverage whose elimination would provide hundreds of billions annually to fund a single-payer program; and ignores savings on drugs and medical equipment that every other single-payer program has reaped.
In the past, Thorpe estimated that single-payer reform would lower health spending while covering all of the uninsured and upgrading coverage for the tens of millions who are currently underinsured. The facts on which those conclusions were based have not changed.”
Jasmine Bleach
@Suzanne:
No, the 26th is National Bacon Day. Nothing beats Bacon.
Cacti
@NR:
Did it bother you at all that Bernie’s single payer plan estimated greater annual savings on prescription drugs than actual annual spending on prescription drugs?
Or should we ignore that because revolution?
jl
As a Sanders mega-donor, I am disappointed with how he rolled out his health care plan. I mean, it’s not like it is one of his signature issues or anything.
I don’t see why it is so difficult for HRC or Sanders to present an inspiring vision of what we want to achieve with health care policy and some practical ideas on how to achieve it. Sanders offers a vision, but fall down in explaining how to get there, and HRC has lots of nuts and bolts, but no vision of the goal. Sanders’ fault is greater since HRC is campaigning (so far) on a nuts and bolts approach. She could easily change that in the general election if she wants to, though.
Sanders really needed to explain how he will achieve his vision. I think it is achievable, but his published plan is not a convincing road map. Why not? It will require taking on excess rents garnered by some professionals, and lots of health care corporations, providers as well as drug and equipment manufacturers. Sanders think they will like him any less if he explains in more detail what needs to be done?
But, he thinks this is the way. That should be clear from his answer to the cancellation of VT single payer plan. Since he was deeply involved in trying to get legislative and regulatory action needed to make it cheaper, he can say more than ‘you have to ask the governor of VT’, but he won’t do that.
As a very mild defense of Sanders, Jeb?’s claim on growth is slighter more outlandish than Sanders. Not much, but slightly. Jeb’s claim was that one of his dinky reactionary policy blips could provide that kind of growth and some of his argument explicitly rested on him not understanding how elementary math worked.
Sanders at least is seemly enough to hide his math.
Amir Khalid
For everyone who’s asking: Asterick is a Gaul, and he’s the best friend of Obelick.
C.S.Strowbridge
@JasonF:
Bingo. I agree with Sanders on nearly every issue, but I’m not going to pretend when it doesn’t screw up.
I took one of those, “who should you vote for” test and I agree with Jill Stein by 96%, Sanders by 93% and Clinton by 92%. Stein doesn’t have a chance, but either Democrat is awesome in my eyes.
MomSense
@jl:
HRC has said consistently that her goal is universal health care. Isn’t that a goal we all share?
dslak
I phonebank for Hillary. I’ve successfully turned a few Sanders leaners into Hillary leaners with this issue, so it’s a legitimate problem for Bernie. Ignore it at your peril.
benw
Sanders must have him them pretty close to the mark to get them all riled up like that, huh kid?
SANDERS/CHEWIE 2016
hint: let the Wookie win.
CarolDuhart2
If the numbers are even half-way right, we could fix infrastructure everywhere for far less, and with less resistance. 37 trillion would fix every pothole in the country, and add thousands of jobs to boot. Single payer would mean layoffs, disruption and massively funded resistance that few politicians could even begin to withstand with more uncertain benefits in the long run. I mean with roads and bridges and sidewalks, the benefits would be visible enough and benefit enough people that it could get popular support quickly enough to not endanger Congressional and Senatorial seats.
And America simply isn’t ready, if it would ever be, for the hard “nos’ that would come with any attempt at cost containment. What if your disease is simply considered “too expensive” to pay for?
NotMax
@Suzanne
Pales in comparison to the whooping it up on World Radio Day and National Inventors Day.
Plus this year we get Leap Day, a holiday so wild it takes four years to recuperate from the raucous celebration.
:)
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Scamp Dog:
Anne Laurie had an airplane
And through the air she’d frisk.
Now wasn’t she a silly girl
Her little * ?
Steve from Antioch
@JasonF: Yes, because everyone knows that the republicans in the House and Senate will eagerly vote for “workable proposals” advanced by a democratic president.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Suzanne:
You read that at the libary, didn’t you?
Corner Stone
God bless but GWB looks awful.
dslak
@CarolDuhart2: There’s also a surprising lag in coverage with public options. I need a transplant, but Medicaid only covers the immunosuppresant drugs for three years after the operation. Without private insurance, I’m dead. Medicare for all sounds potentially scary to me.
jl
@Jasmine Bleach: Single payer is just an approach to financing, and that concept in of of itself, is not the magic key to cost reduction or quality improvement.
I agree that the US really lags almost every other high income industrialized country in health care (probably 22 or 24 of them, and now some middle income countries are catching up, so the number may grow over the next five years if we do not move faster).
Other high income industrialized countries have near universal coverage, and a number of policies that increase access to, and efficiency of, care, reduce rents harvested by corporate providers of health care, and reduce inefficiencies in the insurance market. I think that the kind of single payer Sanders is talking about in and of itself, only handles the universal coverage and insurance market inefficiencies It does nothing to deal with the monopoly and oligopoly rent angle, and nothing to ensure more efficient provision of care. It doesn’t even directly address access, though Sanders at least recognizes that part.
I think some of the NTY article is silly, like vague claims about increasing the size of the government, like it is nationalization or something. It is really a social insurance policy, and only looks as huge as it is because health care is such a overly large proportion of US GDP. A US single payer system would surely try hard to reduce its size a fraction of GDP.
A lot Asian and European countries do better than the US without adopting single payer.
I have nothing against single payer, it can work fine in the US. But too much emphasis on how to finance the health care system skips over a lot of problems in the US system that cannot be solved with just the financing system.
chopper
@Cacti:
that was just a rounding error.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
Perhaps she’s simply risk averse?
oldgold
Vermont Voodoo Economics.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@NotMax:
As in Risk Santorum?
Corner Stone
Dave Weigel is a bad extra from an old Clint Eastwood western movie. He may get tobaccy juiced spit in his face before he takes a large piece of lead in the torso.
scav
@NotMax: Or, maybe a pile (rick) of asters?
magurakurin
@Jasmine Bleach:
We are. The uninsured rate dropped to 10% and as Richard Mayhew explained the other day it would dropped to 7 if all the asshole GOP governors took the Medicaid expansion, and further to 5 if everyone who was eligible for Medicaid actually signed up. And less still if everyone who was eligible for a subsidy from the exchanges understood that and signed up. The 11 million undocumented immigrants aren’t going to get insured anytime soon by any measure. Not by the ACA or by Sanders. A whole nother problem. It is really getting tiring the insistence that only Bernie Sanders cares about getting everyone covered. Everyone wants that, there is disagreement on how to do it. And his plan is a fantasy.
jl
@MomSense: Sanders has managed to create a field of wonderful dreams for US health care by using the slogan of single payer. HRC has not. She needs to flesh out her vision of universal care in a way that inspires people.
I think given the faults of the US health care system, which people experience under PPACA, if HRC just gives the impression that she is just going to get everyone covered with something like what we have now, that is not as inspiring as what Sanders has managed to convey.
That is just my impression. People are free to disagree. I could be wrong.
I do believe that if the US could achieve what Australia or Switzerland, or France has, it would seem like a wonderful field of dreams, and we could achieve that. I see both HRC falling short in providing both the inspiration and the means. But, like I said, that is just my opinion.
jl
@jl:
” It doesn’t even directly address access, though Sanders at least recognizes that part. ”
I meant to add that is why Sanders is also campaigning on a plan to increase access with government and non-profit community primary care clinics.
PhoenixRising
@CarolDuhart2:
Yeah, as the proud owner of a rare disease that my private insurer only had to cover (instead of firing me as a customer when I was DXed) because of the ACA, I’m concerned about this. I would literally be blind/dead or homeless without the provision that requires insurance companies to cover everyone, rated by ZIP code.
I am not a Sanders supporter because if your plan is everyone gets a pony, providers suck up the costs of single payer…what you’re not saying is that people like me are just unlucky.
Our society isn’t going to tolerate someone like me (young white mom) who is more telegenic (straight, married to her children’s father, 2nd grade reading teacher) being told to choose a better illness next time around.
That story has to happen once to destroy social policy advances for decades, and it will happen.
My objection to the Bern isn’t that his preferred policies can’t happen, it’s that it would be a political disaster if they did.
PeakVT
5.3% is a little far-fetched. America is a highly productive economy, so the country’s potential (real) growth rate just isn’t that high. Altering the distribution (a major Sanders goal) might increase real growth for a bit, but I doubt it would make it reach 5.3%. Also, like it or not, the rest of the world has an effect on our economy. I doubt Sanders could do much about, say, the overly strong dollar, which is partially the fault of the Fed but mostly the fault of other countries being either very willing to manipulate their currencies, or stupid enough to cause capital flight.
I like Sanders and I think he has rendered a great service to the country by altering the debate. But he has to understand that there is a massive double standard out there: Anything a Democrat (or social Democrat, for that matter) says will be judged against reality, harshly. (Repukes on the other hand, can say basically anything and the press will nod approvingly.) That is just the way things work. So he can’t make optimistic assumptions and expect them not to be brought up in the general election to prove that he is a out-of-touch hippe flake, blah, blah, blah, you know the deal.
kc
Remember when Obama was running for the first time & the usual suspects were all, “Hey, his ideas are perfectly workable and affordable!”
jl
@PhoenixRising: I think it is a mistake to think that decreasing health care expenditures and increasing access and quality means ‘hard nos’ that doom people with rare diseases.
I think you are in at least as much danger with the current system. The desire of big drug companies, or your local or regional provider in increasing profits through market power and various price fixing and kickback schemes are as likely to throw up as many ‘hard nos’ as health care reform. The private ‘hard nos’ are just often not public, but private and hidden.
The US health care system is so bloated and soaking such a ridiculous proportion of GDP, compared to pretty much any comparable country, that in itself makes an arbitrary ‘NO’ more likely.
You are right to be wary, and the devil is in the details, but a single payer system, and its ‘Nos’ have to pass public debate. The ‘Nos’ that the system generates now don’t have to.
scav
and in a thread largely marked by not being averse to risky verses about ricks of asters and Obelix’s buddy, I don’t think it unreasonable to expect fields of aspirations to be clearly distinguished from plans. Quick and pretty sketches of destinations aren’t roadmaps, although travel posters have their place.
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: Yes, for all intensive purposes.
Shit, I’m getting cray-cray here. This is what happens when I have too much free reign.
jl
@PeakVT: Many in the media, and certainly the GOPers, will try to discredit Sanders’ whole campaign on the dubious numbers of his health care proposal. Anything like that happen to any GOPers far more dubious numbers? I won’t hold my breath.
Jeb is still considered ‘serious’ and ‘wonky’ though I think his claims more outlandish than Sanders.
Cruz hasn’t been mercilessly ridiculed and harried for his ‘We win they lose’ foreign policy strategy, or his incoherent blather about ‘targeted saturation carpet bombing’
And, Yooge Wall with a Wonderful Door.
Gex
@Richard Mayhew: That is a platform I can get behind!
msdc
@NR:
Does watching the Vermont single-payer plan fail because they couldn’t handle the increased tax burden count as a fact?
msdc
@Richard Mayhew:
Devastating. Front-page that.
forked tongue
@Comrade Luke: Keep denyin’ the plain realities, Everyone. Keep denyin.’
Suzanne
@jl: I really don’t know why you or anyone else needs to be INSPIRED by a health care plan. HRC, by temperament, is a production person. She is the type to Get Shit Done. She knows a lot, and knows how to pull the levers of power. It is what makes her a shitty campaigner.
Those are the people who might not INSPIRE anyone, except for those of us who would much rather see measurable results.
Redshift
@Jasmine Bleach:
We are trying to do something about it. A large portion of those are because states haven’t implemented Medicaid expansion and because it excluded immigrants to get passed. People are also more likely to be uninsured even if they qualify for subsidies if they live in a non-Medicaid state, in part because many of those states also passed laws restricting information and advocacy to make it harder to get them signed up.
In other words, it really is true that we can get close to universal coverage with some improvements that are not technically major. A certain candidate gets criticized for not proposing sweeping changes, but it’s not because of a lack of vision, it’s because we already got sweeping changes, and we can get the rest of the way without another huge overhaul.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@NR: The piece your quoting is complete bullshit. It assumes that we can get about $430 billion in annual savings by slashing the wasteful paperwork of insurance. That would be quite a trick, since the entire health insurance industry has about $450 billion in annual revenues. Not paperwork costs. Not profits. Total revenues.
jl
@Suzanne: I don’t need to be inspired by a health care plan. I wish Sanders had more practicality and a tad less inspiration. I think most voters need a balance of both, and right now neither HRC nor Sanders is providing good balance.
So, I was talking about the campaign angle.
It might not be a big deal in the general. HRC might have decided that she can’t compete with Sanders on the inspiration angle in the primary, so is saving that for the general. She can put her primary history behind her a lot more easily than the GOPer can, or maybe Sanders too, for that matter.
Doug R
Well, I was born a few days before the saskatchewan doctor’s strike, that’s probably why I wasn’t born in saskatchewan.
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-birth-of-medicare
NR
@msdc: Addressed in the article:
“However, the Vermont reform did not contemplate a fully single-payer system. It would have allowed large employers to continue offering private coverage, and the continuation of the FEHBP and Medicare programs. Hence, hospitals, physicians’ offices, and nursing homes would still have had to contend with multiple payers, forcing them to maintain the complex cost-tracking and billing apparatus that drives up providers’ administrative costs. Vermont’s plan proposed continuing to pay hospitals and other institutional providers on a per-patient basis, rather than through global budgets, perpetuating the expensive hospital billing apparatus that siphons funds from care.”
FlipYrWhig
And of course they did. Because the only reason anyone would point out serious mistakes is because THEYRE ON THE TAKE ITS ALL CORRUPTION XCEPT BERNIE. Guys, seriously, a new act, get one.
NR
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Not sure where you’re getting $430 billion. The article mentions $327 billion in 2016.
jl
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: The value of entire insurance industry’s (health, auto, property, disaster, everything) final product in GDP accounts could be swallowed up in the gap between what the US pays and other comparable countries pay for health care, and they get better population outcomes.
The collateral damage of the cherry picking and cream skimming games the insurance companies play increase expenditures too, but those don’t show up in industry profits.
I guess the insurance industry is a convenient evil super villain, even though compared to others US health care is is just an ordinary villain, similar to many others.
Comrade Luke
It’s hilarious that Anne, who constantly quotes billmon on twitter, conveniently left him out on this one. I wonder if it’s because he calls out the b.s. about how all of these “left-leaning” economists are anything but “left-leaning”.
It’s almost like it was left out because it doesn’t help Hillary.
jl
@NR: I agree. Federal legislative and regulatory constraints put limits on VT in how it could implement single payer, and one of the reasons the expenditures were higher than they needed to be. Many of the waivers and risk adjustment payments that VT counted on did not materialize.
The original plan included some strong (for the US) efficiency and provider price control regulation. But the VT governor shied away from those, increasing projected expenditures further.
scav
@FlipYrWhig: I am getting unpleasant whiffs of crowds booing when facts are introduced and people behind lecterns writing off other booers as being necessarily the donors to other campaigns. O whee.
slag
Here’s the thing I don’t understand. When ACA was going through the process, there were tons of single payer proposals getting tossed around. Were none of them scrutinized to any significant degree? Have things changed so much that they’ve all become worthless? Do we have no more single payer think tanks on which we can rely for such things?
p.a.
Can anyone explain how 1) Western Europe managesto do it
2) The expense of getting from where we are to where they are
3) The (assumed) savings once we are there (stipulation being our cost/patient approaches W Europe’s)?
4) Where does Sanders’ financial approach fall short?
jl
@slag:
There is an organization started by doctors who want a single payer plan. They have plenty of resources at the link below.
Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP)
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-resources
David *Rafael* Koch
@FlipYrWhig:
jl
@p.a.: IMHO, explaining how to roll back very high prices we pay for health care in the US compared to other countries. Can’t get it all from drug companies, medical equipment suppliers and insurance company profits.
Anybody want to look at the myriad (almost two dozen!) ways other countries do as good or usually better for cheaper, can start with country reports at
European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies
http://www.euro.who.int/en/about-us/partners/observatory
Omnes Omnibus
@p.a.: 1. WWII. Europe was destroyed. Universal healthcare was part of the rebuilding. During the war, US employers who couldn’t give raises offered health insurance. It provided insurance to large numbers of people. It established a precedent that employers offer health insurance. Lots of people now expect it.
I’ll leave the other questions to people be able to answer them.
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Luke: Hillary Rettig should take care of that.
David *Rafael* Koch
Gorgeous Grammy gowns – Ciara
jl
@David *Rafael* Koch: That got me feeling in better health right away. Is that part of your recommended health policy? Newsletter?
Omnes Omnibus
@David *Rafael* Koch: She is lovely. It is a horrible dress.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus: Why are you focusing in trivia like the dress?
Gex
Seems like a lot defenders have focused on single payer. I’d be curious to hear a defense of 5.3% economic growth.
ETA: Minor edits.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: It was introduced as “Gorgeous Grammy gowns.” And I am not a complete pig.
ETA: And to prove the not -pig thing, I offer this.
David *Rafael* Koch
@jl: Gorgeous outfit – Taylor
David *Rafael* Koch
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re right. The one she wore to the White House was stunning.
p.a.
@jl:Tks for the link, I’ll investigate tomorrow.
@Omnes Omnibus: Sure, blame FDR ;-)
Gian
@Corner Stone:
maybe someone burned his portrait
Omnes Omnibus
@David *Rafael* Koch: Better.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gian: He never had the charm or decadence of Dorian Gray.
Omnes Omnibus
@p.a.: Most of the shitty decisions FDR made are decisions that I (were I in his position) might well have made. I can’t (retroactively) okay internment. Most of the rest were compromises to get legislation passed with the hope to do more later.
lamh36
BJ Hamilton-stans, ICYMI, Hamilton won for Best Musical Studio Album or something and they actually broadcast a performance. Manuel gave his acceptance speech in rap form…of course: refinery29 @Refinery29 2m2 minutes ago
When life gives you a Grammy…rap about it. @HamiltonMusical @Lin_Manuel #GRAMMYs
Gian
@Omnes Omnibus:
from the 2000 campaign opposition research he had a DUI, and probably lost his flight certification for the TANG for failing to take a drug test.
So I think he’s got decadence down. Remember how he “choked on a pretzel” and in no way face planted while wasted in the white house?
lamh36
When you want to be reminded of how sad Americas School system truly is…
‘Who is Alexander Hamilton?’ spikes on Google after Grammy win
rose-colored glasses view, it’s cause the song is names “Alexander Hamilton”, but that probably too optimistic a view…smh
Omnes Omnibus
@Gian: We disagree on what counts as decadence. Merely being a shitty human doesn’t count. I think Wilde would side with me.
WarMunchkin
Whenever I look at these debates, I see people packing asterisks into grenades, pulling the pins and throwing them everywhere. I have literally no idea whose numbers are real, since a) no economist has been temporally consistent and b) everybody’s numbers are different.
But really, just like in democracy, the fault is mine. I’m mathematically literate; I should do it myself.
Omnes Omnibus
@WarMunchkin: So go do it. Let’s hear your analysis.
jsrtheta
@Jasmine Bleach: And what are their tax rates? I read Denmark is highest, at 51%. Wanna try selling something like that in this election? (Obviously, if Denmark’s the highest, it probably could be done for less. But what BS envisions in general, and other countries do in practice, is social democracy, and the taxes to support such systems are way more than what would fly here. Seriously.) A social welfare state is what you’re talking about, and that’s a very hard sell here.
Seebach
I don’t think Sanders is particularly electable, despite the fact I like what he says. But, why does Clinton think the way to gain more support is to attack him from the right? Breaking up banks is bad? Ending mass incarceration is worrying? What the fuck bullshit is that?
She’s doing all of the idiot mistakes that caused her to lose to Obama, all over again. She’s learned nothing.
bemused senior
Why do you say she thinks ending mass incarceration is worrying? FWIW Federal incarceration (what the President can influence) is about 10% of overall incarceration, so I could imagine she might find PROMISING to end mass incarceration to be worrying.
LesBonnesFemmes
@Comrade Luke: Do we always agree with all our favorites all the time? No. And, I find, that of my faves that I agree with most of the time, but not all of the time, those are the ones who I respect and love the most.
mike in dc
The last Dem nominee to run primarily on their ability to Get Shit Done was Michael Dukakis. Just saying.
Seebach
@bemused senior: I’m going on faith that she’s not as right wing as she seems but I fucking hope she can beat Trump when the time comes.
mike in dc
@efgoldman:
I think that’s the wrong takeaway. Dukakis lost in part because he was a fairly uninspiring nominee who was lacking in vision. Why can’t the first female presidential nominee(assuming) run on the most ambitious feminist policy agenda, for example? She hits some of the points, but most of her policy stuff is “more of the same, except maybe 5-10% better/further along”. Bernie is promising pie in the sky, but Hillary is going to need to meet him halfway on the ambition/scope thing if she wants to put butts in voting booths in November.
Seebach
@efgoldman: I can see that happening, but can she beat Bernie? If he wins Bloomberg could impose himself and then all hell breaks loose.
Anne Laurie
@lamh36: To be honest, even back in the 1970s, I was amazed how many not-New-Yorkers had only the vaguest idea of who Hamilton was. He was very much NYC’s personal Founding Father — I think Lin-Manuel has mentioned this — but potted American textbook histories tend to mention only the Virginia planters (Washington, Jefferson) and the Boston philosophers (both Adamses, Paul Revere).
Some historical commentors say that the NY Revolutionary base was “embarrassing” to professional hagiographers inventing the Great American Destiny narrative, going back all the way to the first generation after the War, as the people who’d lived through it died off. New York was full of merchants, deal-makers, and scruffy immigrants… not at all the sort of folk proper 1830s Thought Leaders considered good examples for impressionable young persons!
Cacti
@mike in dc:
The last Dem nominee who promised to raise everyone’s taxes was Walter Mondale.
mike in dc
@efgoldman: She’s not uninspiring because she lacks charisma. It’s a lack of boldness that’s uninspiring. She comes across as overcautious, essentially conservative in temperament. Her opponent in the general, if it’s Trump or Cruz, will be making bold and ambitious policy promises. Why not extend her proposals out a bit past the too-safe boundaries she has set?
mclaren
Bernie Sanders had damned well better fix these unrealistic assumptions and unrealistic numbers, or his campaign will be toast. People are already hammering Sanders with the claim that he’s out to lunch because he proposes Eisenhower-era tax rates and actual enforcement of the Sherman anti-trust Act. If Sanders sticks to these ridiculous numbers, he’s going to get the rep of a politician who isn’t living in the real world — and he’ll deserve it.
A good example of how out-of-touch crackpot ignorant Americans are about Sanders’ current policies is the following ludicrous comment:
@jsrtheta:
Self-employment tax in America (in lieu of FICA et al.) comes to $13.3%. Add in the top marginal tax rate at 39.6% and 10% state tax, and what do you get? 62.9%., higher than the allegedly “unthinkable” Danish tax rate. So lots of American are already paying a higher percentage of tax than Denmark’s supposedly unreasonable and unsellable absurd off-the-charts tax rate, but shit-for-brains Balloon Juice commenter is too ignorant to realize it.
divF
@mclaren:
You can’t do bookkeeping. The top marginal rate kicks in at $405K, well above the limit at which FICA cuts off $117K. At income less than $117K / year, the marginal rate is 25%, and the average rate is less than or equal to 15.5%. State taxes: 10% is the limit, and many states have no income taxes. Finally, capital gains is taxed at a much lower rate (15% – 20%).
So yes, 51% would be a real shock to most people.
ETA: The employee contribution to the Social Security tax is 6.2%, and is the part of FICA that cuts off at $117K. Medicare is 1.45%, with no cutoff.
Goblue72
@Jasmine Bleach: The recovering Republicans of BJ don’t want to hear about making of demands that government spend more and that we implement a European style welfare state. They want to hear about how their taxes won’t go up, about how we can only do small things, and how it’s not the Boomers fault for anything.
Goblue72
@efgoldman: Democrats don’t turn out in midterms and doubly so for a lukewarm candidate like Clinton.
It either happens in 2016 or it’s going to need to happen in 2020.
divF
@Goblue72:
No, I’d be happy to hear that my taxes would go up to pay for a European-style welfare state. I just would like to hear how you sell it to the majority of the US electorate.
No more ad hominem attacks, please.
ETA: FYI, I’ve been voting for Democrats since I first voted in 1972. Don’t call me a recovering republican.
Brachiator
Hillary Clinton should be whipping Sanders up one side of the country and down the other. Instead, her campaign is already falling back on BS and, worse, excuses for not meeting expectations. A hot news story is about her team trying to downplay the upcoming Nevada primary.
In 2008, Clinton tried to appeal to white voters and suggest that Obama could not win them over.
Now, she is stupidly trying to insinuate that Sanders’ is just cruising along whitey highway and cannot win over blacks, Latinos and other nonwhite groups.
The Democrats should have a lock on this thing. Maybe they still will do so in the end. But Clinton needs to stop looking for someone to blame and figure out how to win voters over to her side.
And Sanders needs to develop some alternative proposals for what he would do when Republicans and Democrats push back his utopian fantasies. Has he spoken about what kind of Supreme Court justices he would appoint?
divF
@Brachiator:
Source, please ?
Brachiator
@Goblue72:
Hell, even Europeans are backing off of overly generous welfare states. And we see that economic downturns can be just as devastating among the snuggiest welfare state as anywhere else.
Actually, they want to hear about jobs and better wages. In the context of ongoing economic uncertainty, Uncle Bernie’s desire to tax the middle class is delusional.
Brachiator
@divF: Politico, via Yahoo news
Brachiator
@efgoldman:
Part of being electable is being inspiring. Even if it is Jimmy Carter levels of being inspiring.
divF
@Brachiator:
Tiger Beat on the Potomac (H/T Charles Pierce). Not exactly the most reliable source.
Frankensteinbeck
@Seebach:
Well, barring any big change, she has the nomination all but locked up come Super Tuesday, and Bernie already lost one of his best states. The proof will be in the pudding, but yeah, it looks like she can beat Bernie handily.
@divF:
I read that article. It doesn’t actually tell you what the Clinton team said anywhere.
BillinGlendaleCA
@divF:
My guess, the same way Mondale did.
msdc
@NR:
@jl:
In other words, they shied away from the two most politically unpopular parts of any switch to single-payer – kicking people off their current coverage and reducing payments to doctors – and this is why you blame them for the plan’s failure.
“Single payer cannot fail, it can only be failed.”
msdc
@efgoldman:
Whereas this time it’s Hillary running for Obama’s third term, while the Republicans are desperately trying to find any warm body who can stop the unelected challenger from getting the nomination.
DCF
The fusillade of ‘No We Can’t, How Could You Even Contemplate Such Madness‘ continues to dominate the mainstream/corporate media, where real ‘change’ is viewed as antithetical to the preservation of power and position(s). There are contrasting/differing views on the economic feasibility of altering our method(s) of health care coverage:
In Fact, Argue Experts, Sanders’ Medicare-for-All Numbers “Do Add Up”
“It’s indisputable that single-payer systems in other countries cover everyone for virtually everything, and at much lower cost than our health care system,” PNHP co-founder says
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/02/12/fact-argue-experts-sanders-medicare-all-numbers-do-add
FlipYrWhig
@DCF: so if you ignore the aspect of how to get from what we have now to what we could have, it all checks out? That’s kind of leaving out the hard part, no?
Applejinx
Imagine how much they’d all freak out if we tried doing something like Universal Basic Income. It’s interesting to see how many people with a media soapbox or illustrious career are tens or hundreds of times wealthier than a normal average person, and how much they generalize all peoples’ experience.
I think it quite possible that wealthy media people, perhaps even ALL wealthy media people, might have to be taxed even twice as much as what they’re being taxed, and might have to forego a second or third house, get a Miata rather than a Ferrari, and so on.
I’m not sure it’s realistic to expect them to be honest when faced with such a terrible plight.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Anne Laurie:
He was the personal Founding Father of the entire state. They didn’t really have another one; the other NY delegates refused to sign the Constitution and walked out.
Kay
I think the Democratic Party has to answer that question. Are policy outcomes skewed toward the wealthy, and if they are, why is that?
Because there is a lot of evidence that they are skewed toward the wealthy. The conventional explanation was poor and working class people don’t vote and that’s true- they don’t.
But that doesn’t explain it because policies are skewed toward the wealthy and middle class people have high turnout and there are way more of them than wealthy people. There’s no obvious “small d” democratic/political reason for why policy should be skewed toward the wealthy, yet it is. Someone has to explain that because it’s not some fringe idea. It’s widely accepted and there’s a lot to back it up.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Omnes Omnibus: Germany had universal health care under Bismarck. It has a long tradition there.
It seems to me that European health care costs per capita are likely going to rise at faster rates, and ours are likely to rise at slightly lower rates, than in the past. They’re eventually (50-100 years?) going to come close to converging, but we’re not going to see a sudden dramatic decrease in costs here in the US. Physicians and Surgeons and Anesthesiologists and all the rest aren’t going to tolerate a 30-50% cut in their incomes to become comparable to Europe.
Prices are going to fall because new physicians are going to stay as interns and residents longer and docs making $500k a year are going to slowly retire, being replaced by docs making $150k/yr. There will be an expanded two-tier wage system the way there is in lots of manufacturing now. There will be more physicians imported to put pressure on medical wages. Etc., etc. It all takes time but it will slowly bend the cost curve.
Plus, people will gradually get healthier as the science improves and as more people enter the healthcare system before they’re on the verge of death.
That’s the way that costs will come down in the US – not by suddenly going to Single Payer or Medicare for All. Slowly decreasing the Medicare and Medicaid eligibility ages would be a good idea, but there would still be a place for supplemental insurance, and there would have to be various cost control measures put in place at the same time.
TANSTAAFL, and Bernie should be more up-front about it, IMO.
Cheers,
Scott.
Paul in KY
@mike in dc: I think Pres. Clinton also ran on that too. Especially his re-election campaign.
Paul in KY
@Anne Laurie: I think Hamilton was sorta marginalized by being stupid enough to get into a duel with a sleazoid like Aaron Burr & of course, losing said duel.
DCF
@FlipYrWhig:
No rational person expects that this effort will produce immediate results…I believe it is possible that the Senate majority can be reclaimed in 2016, given a high turnout election…as I have written before, it is imperative that we set a ‘high bar’ in order to ultimately achieve the goals we have set:
Bernie’s ‘Political Revolution’ Is Actually Happening, Although the Corporate Media Won’t Tell You That
Don’t rely on the media to tell you what’s going on.
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernies-political-revolution-actually-happening-although-corporate-media-wont-tell-you
DCF
@Kay:
10 Reasons Why Democratic Insiders Shouldn’t Be Surprised
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/14/10-reasons-why-democratic-insiders-shouldnt-be-surprised
DCF
@Brachiator:
This article explains much about the current dynamics of the Democratic Presidential contest – particularly the escalating insurgent success of Senator Sanders:
Sanders Surge Eyes Nevada and South Carolina as Clinton Firewalls Show Cracks
“They took [black voters] for granted and underestimated Bernie’s support… They’ve now discovered there are black folks ‘feeling the Bern.'”
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/02/14/sanders-surge-eyes-nevada-and-south-carolina-clinton-firewalls-show-cracks
DCF
@mclaren:
How Bernie Pays For His Proposals
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511240655
https://berniesanders.com/issues/
J R in WV
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Not only that, the ACA requires insurers to cut their overhead to something like 10%… including profit. So the paperwork overhead has already been greatly reduced very recently, so recently we don’t yet have a good grasp on the effects of that change.
And at my last Dr appointment, he told me that recent changes in how diagnoses and treatments are handled are cutting his private practice one-man-band paperwork overhead by something like 50%.
Off topic: He’s been our family doctor for over 35 years now, which always makes me laugh when those drug commercials tell me to “Make sure to inform your doctor about any liver, or kidney, or heart or central nervous system problems you have or drugs you take that may interact with this medication!”
Like, how would I know if my doctor doesn’t? I hate those commercials, doctors will know if a new drug might help a patient with their illnesses or conditions, the pharma sales reps will make sure of it. The commercials should be banned, they induce people not qualified to attempt to practice medicine on themselves.
J R in WV
@David *Rafael* Koch:
Pretty good looking couple – I have to admit, I don’t actually know who either of them is… not connected to pop culture any more.
Don’t watch TV much anymore, never did, really, except for MASH and such, which dates me, but I’ve already pled guilty to being old.
We do watch the PBS shows recorded at the White House and Kennedy Center ans such, when we notice something good coming up.
Aretha tore it up at the Kennedy Center not too long ago, but there I go again with an old.
J R in WV
@divF:
You leave out sales taxes, state, county and city in many places. You leave out property taxes, gas taxes, I know there are more, but I’m not a tax accountant.
I bet for people making an income comparable to Danish incomes, 51% is about right. Does the 51% tax rate in Denmark include the Euro Value added tax? That’s a crazy high sales tax on everything.
Tourists can file a form to get that V tax refunded when they leave the EU Zone if they bought enough stuff to make it worthwhile to do the paperwork.
ETA fixed a typo, guess I’m talking to a dead thread… not the first time.
jl
@msdc: No, that is not what I said, and not what the original plan entailed. What do you suppose the idea was, to kick some hospitals and doctors out of the VT?