Steerpike

I was moderately enthusiastic about Hillary. I thought Bill was a great president (in terms of what was achieved) and figured we'd get two-for-the-price-of-one with Hillary. She was a career politician with a ton of baggage but she was a skillful operator and I felt she would basically 'get the job done'. I also felt that it would have been a great milestone to have a woman elected president, especially right after a black guy. I don't expect to like my president. I was certainly ultra-enthusiastic about her when compared to Trump!

robin1234

+1

johnwoo

In-spite of the fact Hilary not being popular and losing the election. She was more popular than Trump. (The popular vote)
The minority rules the Majority.

vespucci

I saw this very good article about US health care in Time magazine titled 'The sickness of our system":

https://time.com/5785945/health-care-problems-america/

Hiro11

My reactions to this article:

The article headline "Unequal access to Health Care..." seems to conflict with what the article is actually about. I agree with the ACTUAL main thrust of the article: the high cost of healthcare in the US is the main problem here. Too many politicians focus on coverage or access issues without discussing how they plan to cut costs. Expanding access without cutting costs with simply drive costs even higher and put health care out of reach of more people. For example: the first thing here should be to cut waste. People with coverage (the vast majority of Americans) are actively encouraged to consume hugely expensive health care services frivolously. I've done it myself. Let's put in place measures to stop waste first.

I actively disagree with the next section of this article. The author starts to mix in their political leanings and cherry picking facts. For example, this article declares that the health care system in the US is ineffective because outcomes are worse than other countries. This is highly debatable. Health outcomes are mostly driven by lifestyle choices, the big one here being obesity. The US has a huge (no pun intended) problem with obesity and obesity is a major factor in most poor health outcomes and a huge driver in health care expense (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity...nces/economic/). The ability of the health care system to control behaviors like obesity is highly debatable.

The article then goes on to an attack on the profitability of the pharma industry and the high salaries of doctors without any evidence of why this is bad. People making money on health care = bad in the author's view. OK, so...? Not good enough: why is profitability in the health care system in and of itself bad? How does "unequal access" contribute to this "excess" profitability? This makes no sense. In other cases, the article is factually dishonest. For example, the article states that there's a shortage of doctors in the US and that this shortage is driven by "physician led groups limiting the number of places in medical school". Bullshit:
https://www.modernhealthcare.com/art...er-record-high

Then the author veers back to talking about cost and I start to agree again:
"Insurance works only when sick and healthy people are pooled together, in America by employment, and in other rich countries by government fiat across the whole population. Without subsidies for those with low incomes, and without some guarantee that everyone is always in the system, insurance cannot work. Leaving health care to the market leaves many uninsured." This I agree with. Numerous studies have demonstrated that, despite the huge waste in the programs, government-provided health care benefits like Medicare/Medicaid are still the single most effective and efficient government-provided benefit that is offered in the US. However, the article weirdly neglects to mention the existence of these massive programs. It also neglects to discuss the ridiculously wasteful, ineffective, abused, fraud-ridden and ever growing SSA disability insurance programs which have been a wasteful driver in increasing health care costs.

Overall, I'm confused by this article. My main complaint is that the authors attack the system while providing NO suggestions on what actually should be done to fix the problems. This pushes the article into the realm of polemic.

Steerpike

Thanks for an interesting analysis.

Can you expand a bit on "... neglects to discuss the ridiculously wasteful, ineffective, abused, fraud-ridden and ever growing SSA disability insurance programs which have been a wasteful driver in increasing health care costs" ? This is not something I've heard anything about.

Oakvillian

So, Farewell then
Mayo Pete.
Nobody could pronounce
Your name,
But now we won't have to try
Any more. At least,
Not until the next time.

with apologies to E J Thribb, aged 17 1/2

Jerseygirl

Buttigieg has stood down. I wonder what he was offered. Methinks forces are at work to make sure Biden gets to run for Prez.

lansbury

Shame that, he would have been my pick if he had hung around to the Oregon primary.

scrubbedexpat099

I thought he had the money to last longer? He may be keeping his money safe to fund something else?

I was wondering maybe a VP, but that seems unlikely. Senate?

steveq

That merely says there are more doctors at medical school, it doesn't say there are enough. I know UK medical schools are expanding, but they still poach badly needed doctors from poor countries
It also says
which seems to me to point to restrictions in the system. And I may be wrong, but doesn't the US make qualified doctors from other countries intern again for a long period before they can work here ?

scrubbedexpat099

There is some suggestion that Pete has made his name, and wants to keep his powder dry for a future run, after all he is half the age of most of the candidates and can think 4, 8 years ahead. He gets out now with his image intact, has some cards to play and can dissociate himself from what is likely to become a more interesting process.

Now who will he support? His comments so far seem to exclude everybody, makes sense to keep quiet? See what happens.

scrubbedexpat099

Klobuchar gone, not surprising, seems she is jumping on the Biden train?

Jerseygirl

Amy Klobuchar has also stepped down. What a surprise...she is also backing Biden. I almost feel sorry for Bernie.

scrubbedexpat099

The DNC have certainly been busy, things have changed a lot in the last day, focus is on Biden, he seems the chosen one. In reality they just need to squeeze out Bloomberg and Bernie and job done.