Re: 2020 Election
 

I read Jeffrey Toobin's piece in the New Yorker about Deval Patrick and his prospects for 2020.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...tial-prospects

I would think he will be a serious contender if he chooses to run. One of his achievements in MA was to tweak & improve the RomneyCare system, which is effective and generally popular in MA. Healthcare should be a priority in 2020. Deval Patrick is a pragmatic centrist, and (just thinking of Mass people) I would much rather him than Warren. I see Warren as an asset to the US Senate, and I hope she stays there.

Re: 2020 Election
 

I've always felt that the US needed some form of 'Universal Healthcare', but recently as a self-employed, older person not yet 65 (not yet eligible for Medicare) I've been personally motivated due to astronomical premiums for private Healthcare insurance. I paid $1,200/mo last year for high-deductible insurance and this year I'm paying $500/mo for a non-ACA compliant, utterly disgraceful policy (pre-existing condition elements, cap of $1m, no preventive, can be dropped if I actually claim, etc).

I met this week with a pretty sharp Healthcare Insurance specialist to review my 2019 options, and she says that now, support for ACA (Obamacare) is very high among her (conservative demographic) client base, as people have learned to appreciate key elements (pre-existing conditions, no caps, etc). In the AZ senate race, Sinema (first Democrat to win in this conservative state in ... 28 years?) made Healthcare her central theme, and it helped her defeat the Republican (McSally), highlighting McSally's support for gutting the ACA. So it does seem that, after all this time, 'Obamacare' may be coming into it's own as a positive issue. The ACA is by no means great, and the republicans should have and could have helped improve it over the past 8 years but instead they just fought it tooth-and-nail, and then ... failed miserably to do anything meaningful when they finally got into power. So any candidate who has a solid plan for 'Obamacare II' may have the edge.

I think a 'pragmatic centrist' is exactly what would be best for the country, and for the Democratic party, so he sounds interesting. Speaking of Pragmatic, how about Bloomberg? I'm sure he has his issues, but he seems so 'right' to take on Trump - he can play the 'successful businessman' card way better than Trump, and should appeal to the center / independents. Is he hated in some circles?

Re: 2020 Election
 

I think Bloomberg is just too old. Born in 1942. Apart from that, a fine person and much respected in New York.

Toobin actually said that about Deval Patrick in MA in contrast to the republicans in Washington; he tweaked RomneyCare and filled in some of its weaknesses, which is what Congress should have done with ACA rather than waste time and energy trying to repeal it.

Patrick's weak point is that he's a corporate lawyer and somewhat too closely allied to Wall Street. That would be how Trump and the republicans would attack him.

Re: 2020 Election
 

There was a LOT of discussion on here when OCare was implemented, it was essentially designed to fail as has been proven.

Not sure I know anybody who likes it, maybe those who get it for nowt? A large part of Colorado only has one Insurer and premiums have soared.

I know people who like the idea of a single payer, the issue that was ignored, is still ignored is cost, Somebody has to pay for the current nonsense.

On a plus point the Dentist gives 10% discount for cash and not Insurance, should be a lot more in my mind.

Re: 2020 Election
 

I haven't seen any projections to even get an idea of what it would cost.

Re: 2020 Election
 

OCare had no cost containment built in, well technically none of consequence.

Open for abuse as can be seen by the California Ballot proposal.

Without cost control you eventually just are arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic,

For some reason I thought the subsidy cost would end up with the States, not sure....

I am sure a single payer scheme would be more cost effective if properly implemented.

Re: 2020 Election
 

Of that I have no doubt, Medicare is really efficient - far more so than any commercial insurance company.

Re: 2020 Election
 

Michael Avenatti in Los Angeles police custody

Wonder how this will impact his 2020 run?

Re: 2020 Election
 

Couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke. Bloomberg is a complete tool.

Re: 2020 Election
 

When California was toying with the idea of single payer, the estimate was $400 billion/yr at the start from the sources I have seen. As far as I know the idea was shelved in the state assembly.

California and Canada have similar populations and Canada in 2017 spent about $240 billion on healthcare. ($240 billion Canadian dollar.) Obviously healthcare costs here rise over time, and that was for 2017, 2013 was $211 billion.

Re: 2020 Election
 

To do a comparison you would need to know what is currently spent. But those numbers illustrate the issue, Massive waste, corruption etc in the US system.

Re: 2020 Election
 

As long as the topic of health care is on deck, I recommend giving this article a read. It will become obvious how the medical community is ripping of the sick and why insurance is so costly.

Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us | Time.com

Re: 2020 Election
 

Exactly

Think it was Proposition 8 in CA, the interested parties threw a lot of money against it and it failed, thought it would be an obvious win.

Re: 2020 Election
 

The ACA was a typical 'political compromise' at its worst; the architects/authors wanted single-payer, but knew they wouldn't get it passed so came up with a compromise that allowed the insurance companies to participate. In the end, it was a 'good idea, badly implemented'. That's where, during the last 10 years, the CONGRESS (Republicans and Democrats) could and should have worked to improve it in an evolving, incremental fashion, but the Republicans just tried to kill it dead at every opportunity.

But my point is this - today, no one is willing to take away some of the key provisions of that law; that genie is out of the lamp. Talking about not insuring people with pre-existing conditions has now become political suicide - as it should be. So it would appear that the ACA has established a new 'baseline' for whatever is to come next. Whether that is just a more robust / affordable version of what we have now, or 'Medicare for all' (which sounds eminently reasonable), or something else - we don't know at this point. But the Democrats are going to control the dialog, that would seem clear.

Re: 2020 Election
 

Why? Guns?