That may never happen. If it didn't with the majorities we had in place at the start of this presidency, then why expect it?
I don't. That's why I don't think the "it's a good start we'll fix it later" argument is a good one.
You should really stop trying to put a label on me. I've made it a point since the age of six to shake those kinds of stereotypical definitions and I'm REALLY good at that. I'm not as moderate as you think. You continually forget that I agreed with you that the bill didn't go far enough. But there is an idealistic and realistic side to things in life and I look at them both. That allows me not to get caught up on the imagery and pay attention to the details.
When you refer to basic, common sense reforms as idealistic and overzealous, how I am supposed to NOT think you're a centrist?
Also, since when is trying to find the common ground between two factions considered a "bias"? Centrism, by definition, is the practice of promoting moderate policies which lie between different political extremes. Their actions assume the middle ground, regardless if their beliefs lean slightly towards Democratic or Republican ideology. To have a bias, by definition, is to demonstrate prejudice in favor of one thing, person or group, sometimes to the point where it may be considered unfair. On paper, the one thing a centrist could be "biased" about is the ideology of getting two different groups to work together and come up with a compromise. What's wrong with that?
A centrist bias is a perfectly reasonable term. Not every situation has a middle ground. In healthcare, as far as congress goes, there's the liberal solution, which is conservative, and the conservative solution, which is extremely conservative. If you're not starting from 2 extremes, trying to find a middle for the sake of finding a middle looks a lot like someone who'd prefer to not rock the boat, so they can claim to be in the majority on all issues.
Comments like this will always make you look more rabidly bitter than you need to be. Of course the bill wasn't perfect. And yes, you're trying to be funny. But you went to the well with this "joke" too many times so now I have reason to question just how fringeworthy you may be.
This bill had everything the industry could possibly ask for. I don't feel it's rabidly bitter at all. Do you want to actually engage the point of the sentence, or criticize my style?
I stopped making fun of your patronizing "son" tone after the first few posts, when I realized you thought it was either clever or effective, and let you run with it.
Numbers on a piece of paper are just one form of cognition on the subject matter. Actual personal experience is another. Only a fool rejects knowledge just because it comes in a way they don't like. You don't have to like me in order to consider anything I say to be factual or with any substance. But if you actually was a mature adult as you pretend to be, you'd know when to do it.
I never rejected your knowledge, but you made the mistake of presenting your anecdote while treating statistics dismissively. That's a fundamentally anti-intellectual stance.
Nothing you said was news, or contradictory of the statistics I included, so it didn't really add anything to the conversation, other than to stroke your ego of having firsthand experience, as if that somehow made you more of an expert.
Don't be an idiot. I didn't throw out statistics. Facts are not just proven with percentages, Einstein.
Actually, they are. That's kind of the point of data. If you want though, I'll go tell some scientists writing a peer reviewed research paper that they're barking up the wrong tree by using percentages.
The plural of anecdote is not data. You sound exactly like people who claim that the poor are lazy because they knew some lazy poor people. The fact that your anecdote did not dispute the data doesn't make your above quote any less stupid.
You'd be exactly where you are right now. Bitter, childish, immature and voluntarily ignorant, arguing how some liberal minded people are not as liberal as you. Metaphorically speaking, you've thrown your dick on the table and are chastising people for not being as big or as thick as you. And you wonder why people may not see things your way? Seriously, how stupid are you?
Apparently not stupid enough to try and say that statistics aren't facts.
The best part of this quote is that you point out that your anecdote added nothing, because without I'd be in exactly the same place.
Also, I never complained that people weren't as liberal minded as me. I complained that the bill was shit, and too many people were unaware of how bad it is.
No, I didn't say that it didn't solve any of the issues within our system. Now you're trying to put words in my mouth. If you paid attention, you'd understand that a major way to solve the problem of healthcare is to extricate or cut down other financial burdens affecting people. You do that through jobs, affordable housing and education among other things. It's not enough to say everyone gets free healthcare or put people on a public option when the costs for medical procedures and medicine continue to rise. Even if you put a cap on those prices to prevent them from going up dramatically, eventually you'll have people on a government plan who STILL can't afford it. The problem of people foregoing healthcare would still exist.
There are many reasons that the cost of healthcare is continuing to rise, and many of them are faults of the existing system. To accept a bill that addressed none of these problems, and then say "but stuff costs too much we have to fix those problems" shows a fundamental ignorance of the issue.
Lets look at why healthcare costs so much.
Limited Risk pools? Not addressed by the bill at all.
Unnecessary profit motive? Not addressed by the bill.
High drug costs? Solution specifically kept out of the bill.
Unnecessary and redundant administration? Not addressed by the bill.
Poor record Keeping? Somewhat addressed by the bill.
Lack of focus on preventative care? Somewhat addressed by the bill.
The for-profit system is the cause of our high expenses, not an innocent bystander. You can't ignore that fact and then say we have to look elsewhere to help people afford healthcare. Our system costs twice as much per capita as any other system in the world, be it single-payer like the UK, or a heavily regulated private system like Germany. The key difference is lack of regulation and for-profit medicine, both of which were not addressed in the bill.
For the record, there are many other social problems that are hurting people's ability to pay, and I'm quite aware of them, but I'd rather focus on the healthcare system in this thread, as it's the one that costs twice as much as everyone elses.
Now, if I was as shortsighted as you I would have demanded that you show me some "statistics". Funny how the same accusations you propose to me can be reflected right back at you, eh?
Now you're being childish, since I can't provide statistics for a system that hasn't been implemented.
However, if you'd like some examples from other countries, you can look at the
NHS Finance Manual, or
this overview of their income, and
this overview of UK taxation.
If you'd like a bill that I support fully that would answer all of your questions regarding implementation and finance, look up HR676.