Category: Politics and Government

The problem with Medicare for all who want it

Well, there’s more than one problem since real ‘everyone’ creates more efficiencies that ‘some subset of everyone’ fail to create. But the biggest problem is that ‘all who want it’ is a false alternative to employer provided healthcare just like the ACA marketplace options creates an illusion of choice for anyone who doesn’t qualify for a subsidy.

My employer pays a lot of money for my health insurance plan. Like 14,000$ a lot. I pay another 3k. If the ‘all who want it’ platform wins and opens Medicare enrollment to everyone, do I want it? I can take my three grand and look at Medicare, just like I could take my three grand and look at the 750$ a month plans on the marketplace. Oh, or the 1000$ a month plan. My cheapest ACA option was six grand a year more than I’m paying today. And when the company increases their contribution next year and therefore doesn’t increase our salary? I still get nothing, even though they’re not paying anything for my insurance.

So am I a “who want it”? Either the Medicare plan — health insurance, emergency, and prescription drugs — is going to cost less than three grand {and my employer still gets to pocket fourteen grand and call my raise an increase in their contribution to healthcare premiums} or I have the “choice” of paying thousands more for my healthcare. I’d happily pay a couple hundred bucks extra for better insurance. I’d happily take the seventeen grand that’s being paid for my healthcare today and buy a Medicare plan. But there’s no way Medicare is going to compete with employer subsidized coverage.

And I think the “all who want it” proponents know this — set the Medicare for All system up for failure, and the for-profit insurance industry can continue unchanged.

Moral Foundations Theory

I’d agree the challenge isn’t finding some position that unifies progressives with white supremacists, Nazis, libertarians, religious conservatives, fiscal conservatives, *AND* capitalists but promoting policies in a way that appeal to a subset of those individuals. And, yeah, I wouldn’t count on seeing a bunch of Klan members being swayed toward social justice ideology (although there’s chap using one-on-one interactions to bring people away from white supremicist ideology — https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes). I think a lot about moral foundations theory (e.g. Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind”) when I think about how to unify with a subset of the Republican party. Check out Feinberg and Willer’s research where they present articles written using liberal and conservative moral foundations (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282668982_From_Gulf_to_Bridge_When_Do_Moral_Arguments_Facilitate_Political_Influence) — I found myself supporting military spending as a massive public works project (I still think it sucks you need to risk your life to participate in said public works project!). I’ve also had a lot more luck convincing conservative friends that keeping the air/water/soil clean is a Good Thing as a matter of cleanliness/godlieness instead of all of the Very Good Reasons I think it’s important.

Day Three

I think there was an opportunity for either (or both) of them to spin the “woman cannot win the presidency” v/s “Trump will weaponize misogyny in the election” situation in a positive way — maybe Warren took umbrage at the way Sanders conveyed his belief that Trump would mobilize sexists against a female candidate in the way he mobilized racists in 2016, maybe Sanders said something outright offensive. Accusing each other of lying, even privately, doesn’t help anything. “Fairness” in journalism is going to create a false equivalence between the accusation of a lie with Trump’s daily deluge of lies. There’s no recording of the meeting, and litigating what was said, what was meant, and what was understood diminishes both candidates. And, while I don’t normally like when a candidate avoids either the proximal or distal question to avoid having to answer something they don’t want to answer … I think this is a situation where avoiding the proximal question and engaging on the distal one would serve either of them well:
 
[I know Bernie is | I am] a strong advocate for women’s rights, but “how can we overcome Trump’s misogyny in 2020” is something we need to address. If you are no longer forced to decide between groceries and prescription medication, does it matter if a man or woman delivered Medicare for All? If you are breathing clean air and drinking clean water, does it matter if a man or woman enacted the New Green Deal? If your kids can graduate from University debt-free, does it matter if a man or woman ensured access to free public universities?

Bankrupting the Country

There are some argumentative political statements that I can never decide if it’s deliberately obtuse or an actual misunderstanding. Joe the Plumber comes to mind — a lot of people have no understanding of business taxes (or know the difference between gross and net). Maybe he really thought a million dollar gross plumbing business would throw him into the wealth tax level. Or he’s making a disingenuous argument — either bemoaning that a plumbing business netting a million dollars would pay increased taxes or deliberately failing to mention that a million dollar gross business isn’t anywhere near wealth-tax levels and letting people hear “million dollar” and assume as they assume.

“Won’t Medicare for All bankrupt the country” has become this year’s Joe the Plumber for me. Won’t private insurance bankrupt individuals and businesses? I pay around 3k a year for my family’s insurance. If universal health care meant my taxes went up 10k, not having to pay that 3k wouldn’t make me feel much better. But what I pay isn’t the sum of what my health insurance costs. My employer paid about 14,000USD for my medical and dental insurance. Legislation can ensure what employers currently contribute to wasteful private insurance becomes funding for Medicare for All.

If the entirety of my 3k went to Medicare for all, and the remaining 7k came from my employer … they would be saving 7,000USD on a single employee. Maybe all 10k comes from the employer. My taxes go down 3k, the company still saves 4k. Or maybe universal heath care costs 17k and the entirety of what both my employer and I pay gets redirected toward Medicare. The worst case in any of these scenarios is that we’ve broken even, I’ve got better coverage, people who change jobs don’t have lapses in coverage, and people who need to see a doctor or get medicine do so.

Yes, it’s possible implementing universal health care would be a net cost increase. While there’s logical consistency that removing profit, executive salaries, and general overhead would yield a lot of savings … having more people actually use their health care might yield a lot of additional expense. But the gross cost of universal healthcare is offset by what we currently pay — just like the plumbing company with a million dollars in gross receipts isn’t forking over 40% of that million dollars in taxes. 

January Debate

The post-debate chatter where CNN tried to tell me how women were feeling during the exchange was especially irksome. It’s not like they had a huge focus group convened for a virtual watch party, or like they had enough time to poll actual women. They reported what they wanted the reaction to be to the controversy they started just in time to spice up their debate.
 
How I felt during the exchange? As a woman, I’m used to people conflating specific situations with generalizations and screaming sexism. Which exasperates me because there’s so much ACTUAL sexism to combat. I didn’t think Clinton could defeat Obama in 2008. That doesn’t mean I am sexist. That means I thought about the strengths and weaknesses of both candidates, how the public was likely to see those strengths and weaknesses, looked at how Obama was leveraging then-cutting-edge technology. And thought Clinton wasn’t going to win. Sanders says his assessment was that Trump is a sexist, racist liar. I conjecture from that defense that the conversation was essentially that Trump is going to use that against any candidate. A woman running against him needs to be prepared to respond to sexist statements. A minority running against him needs to be prepared to respond to racist statements. And everyone running against him needs to be prepared to counter his lies. Does that make the path more challenging for a woman? Sure. This past summer, my daughter and I were at a playground when a cop rolled up and chatted with us for a few minutes. Do people who play at a different playground or have darker skin have a more challenging chat with their officer? Often, yes. Hell, I know *men* who take their kids to a playground and get grilled as a potential pedo or kidnapper. Discussing this doesn’t make me racist or sexist … it makes me aware of my privilege.
 
I already have a trouble trusting Warren. Not because she’s a woman but because she’s relatively new to her convictions. And, with Medicare for All, seems to be willing to drift away from *my* convictions. Sure, I’ll take “the risk that she’s got whatever belief is polling well this week” over “Trump”. I’d also easily take anything this side of pandemic flu over Trump, so that’s a low bar. And I’d be a lot more invested in supporting her this Autumn than, say, Biden. But compared to someone with a long history of beliefs (even when those beliefs ran against the mainstream thinking)? One of the logical flaws I saw in Clinton’s campaign (and McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin) is the idea that women are so invested in promoting feminism that we’ll vote for any available woman. If there’s a candidate who I agree with who happens to be a woman, yeah that would excite me. But I’m not eager to support someone whose views run opposite to mine just because they are female. That’s sexism too. And I worry that Warren is headed down that same “identity politics” path.
 
The quibbling about 30 years bothered me on two levels. Academically, 1990 is 30 years ago. Sanders didn’t win a special election, it was *Nov* 1990. Which, mathematically, is less than 30 years ago. That is, we don’t need to quibble about whether “in the past 30 years” is an open or closed set. I get rounding, but saying “it’s been almost 30 years since anyone here, other than me, defeated an incumbent Republican opponent” would have retained the big/round number and been factually accurate. “And the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican any time in the past 30 years is me.”? Not true. And, just like every car seems to be the ‘best selling automobile in it’s class*’ followed by some small text about how the class has been so narrowly defined that it precludes a few similar-enough and better-selling vehicles … Warren picked the time-frame. Her response was not off-the-cuff; she knew the question was forthcoming and had an answer prepared. She could have picked 25 years which is still a big and round-enough number.
What bothered me more is that, even if her statement were true, it’s a disingenuous argument. It is phrased to sound like “you are worried about electability, well here are a bunch of losers and I’m the one who can win because I have won’. But that doesn’t line up with facts.
 
* Bernie defeated a Republican opponent back in 1990. Then won elections over non-incumbent challengers – including in 1994 when the Republicans did quite well with challengers for House seats. He didn’t have an incumbent *to* defeat since 1990. So he’s got 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, in the House. Then 2006, 2012, and 2018 in the Senate. That’s not nearly as detrimental to electability as her statement is meant to sound. And, hell, he defeated *Democratic* opponents in this 30 year window too.
 
* Biden defeated his incumbent Republican opponent back in 1972. But we’re only looking at 30 years. So 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008 he defeated non-incumbent Republicans. And was on the winning ticket in 2008 and 2012.
 
* Kobluchar didn’t have an incumbent to defeat when she ran in 2006. Or in 2012 and 2018. Again, still won against Republican challengers.
 
* Buttigieg — He’s got an actual loss to a Republican incumbent — the state Treasurer race. How much of that race is party line, though? Didn’t have an incumbent to defeat when he ran for mayor in 2011. Or in 2015.
 
* Steyer hasn’t run for anything AFAIK.
 
Her assertion would have made more sense if they had been running against Republicans and losing. Across the entire stage, there was one loss to a Republican in the past 30 years.
At that, Warren defeated Brown in 2012. And won against her non-incumbent challenger in 2018. That’s hardly a the long record of winning that “the only person to beat an incumbent Republican any time in the past 30 years” sounds like. She had a well-rehearsed response to a made-for(and by)-TV controversy {one that my conspiracy theory brain says “hey, who might have leaked damaging scuttlebutt about a strong opponent right before a debate and the caucuses?”}. And her prepared response is an appeal to pathos. As a human who appreciates logos and ethos too, my opinion of Warren is diminished by this debate.

A bad feeling

I used to want to work in the military intelligence field — data analysis, creating response playbooks. As a result, I learned the importance of taking the context of a report into consideration. Some counties have independent media — something bad happens in the USA, someone is bound to write about it. Now there are avenues for suppressing information — some content that will compromise national security is going to have more trouble getting out there than speculation on corporate fraud committed by a president. But other countries don’t. When I was studying history and poli sci, it was Russia that was a concern. And Russian media publications are going to provide state approved news. For something really bad to hit the Russian news, it’s going to be impossible to hide. Think Chernobyl — they’re measuring fallout in Finland. Everyone knows something happened.

And that’s why I get a bad feeling when China reporting “a cluster of pneumonia cases” — a stock the pantry, batten your hatches bad feeling.

Timeline – Biden, Burisma, and the Prosecutors General

I’m trying to follow the logic of Biden corruptly using his influence to squash an investigation into a company that employed his son on its board.

Zlochevsky, former Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, is the majority shareholder in Burisma and may have gotten gas extraction licenses because of Zlochevsky’s former position. In 2012, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka began investigating Zlochevsky for possible corruption, money laundering, and tax evasion from 2010–2012. The British Serious Fraud Office investigates Zlochevsky for a possible money laundering scheme too. On 16 April 2014, the British blocked accounts held by Burisma’s majority shareholder for holding 23 million in possibly ill-gotten assets. They sent a letter to the Ukraine requesting documents for their investigation.

21 April 2014, Biden visits the Ukraine and promises aid to help the country avoid relying on Russia for petrol – aid which might have been used to increase domestic fuel extraction and benefited companies holding extraction licenses (i.e. Biden is committing funds that might farther enrich Zlochevsky). Burisma announced Hunter Biden joining the board on 12 May 2014.

07 June 2014, Poroshenko took office as the President of Ukraine; Prosecutor General Vitaly Yarema was confirmed on 19 June 2014. Yarema opens an investigation into Burisma on 05 Aug 2014 for ‘unlawful enrichment’. 14 October 2014, anti-corruption laws are enacted in the Ukraine. In February, George Kent says he met with a deputy prosecutor from Yarema’s office and, in an action coordinated with the US Justice Department, spoke against having the case shut down. In December 2014, the American government is pushing Ukraine to help the British with their investigation. The British unblock Zlochevsky’s accounts on 21 January 2015 because of insufficient evidence to substantiate the claim. They weren’t getting help from the Ukrainians.

10 Feb 2015, Viktor Shokin replaces Yarema a Prosecutor General. But I’ve not seen any reports of Shokin picking up the Burisma investigation. Everything I’ve read says he had essentially left the case mothballed. In late 2015, Biden and the US government are still speaking out about possible corruption and specifically call out officials who failed to assist with the British investigation into Zlochevsky. Biden made a speech in the Ukrainian Parliament about rooting out corruption in the country and threatens to withhold a billion dollars in loan guarantees unless Poroshenko fires Shokin.

03 April 2016, Shokin is fired by Parliament for the slow pace of investigations and corruption allegations. 12 May 2016, Yuriy Lutsenko was appointed as Prosecutor General. And 13 May 2016 the US agrees to a billion dollar loan guarantee. Lutsenko is the one who investigated Burisma. A Burisma statement says the case was dropped in Sept of 2016. Burisma pays a couple million in taxes and fines in Sept of 2016.

The claim isn’t that Biden got Shokin, a guy who was investigating Burisma, fired. OK, yeah, that is the claim … but was there an investigation?! Kasko, Shokin’s deputy, says the office did nothing to pursue the investigation throughout 2015.

If not, the crux of this claim is that Joe Biden had some knowledge that the investigation was going to resume? Maybe the idea is Biden knew the popular sentiment in the Ukraine was to get a tougher prosecutor and used American money to ensure “you need to fire the Prosecutor General and appoint someone who will really root out corruption” was “you need a guy who roots out corruption and knows that company where my son sits on the board is totally on the up-and-up, so there’s no need to get back into investigating them”. Or “get this mothballed case opened and do as little harm to the company where my son sits on the board”. But that’s a lot different than saying he pressured the Ukrainians to fire a prosecutor who was about to bust his son (or the company paying his son).

Hopefully this will get cleared up in the Senate Impeachment proceedings. Because a much as I know the Democrats don’t want Biden testifying … I expect Trump’s defense to spend a lot of time promoting what exactly they claim Biden did wrong.