2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker - Part II

[Jungle Jim]

Additional utilization that reduces overall costs. I work with exactly this data all day. Preventative care for many is cheaper than last-minute care for some. Any ACO will tell you that. That's why they provide so many free services just to get people tested and treated early. They're even paying for NP home visits now for health maintenance to head off future ED visits when a crisis occurs. House calls, like oldtimey doctors. The data don't lie, and universal preventive care makes both medical AND financial sense.

My health insurance plan covers free membership at a community fitness center. I take full advantage of it.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Additional utilization that reduces overall costs. I work with exactly this data all day. Preventative care for many is cheaper than last-minute care for some. Any ACO will tell you that. That's why they provide so many free services just to get people tested and treated early. They're even paying for NP home visits now for health maintenance to head off future ED visits when a crisis occurs. House calls, like oldtimey doctors. The data don't lie, and universal preventive care makes both medical AND financial sense.

I agree. There are also people who have medical conditions that cannot be prevented, do not receive medical care because the can't afford it, that would under single payer.

 

[Distracted1]

That's meaningless. First, nobody can say what "most electable" even means. Second, most people think *their* candidate is, of course, the "most electable". It's like arguing that the 7th inning stretch is good. No ****

You dismiss polling as a method of gathering data as to how likely a given candidate is to defeat Trump in the general election?

 

[kellyb]

Part of the argument for single payer is people are not currently getting care. The more Warren argues how bad the current situation is, the less credible her claim that it will cost less. Savings will be eaten at by increased utilization.

Comprehensive, universal, "free at the point of use" care can be done for about half the cost we do it here.

Remember this chart, noticing the dark blue bars, "public expenditures"? What we pay in taxes for Medicare, Medicaid, and military healthcare alone covers 100% of the population in the "single payer" countries.

 

[kellyb]

You dismiss polling as a method of gathering data as to how likely a given candidate is to defeat Trump in the general election?

The data shows that Sanders, Warren, and Biden are all roughly equally likely to beat Trump.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/

 

[varwoche]

Comprehensive, universal, "free at the point of use" care can be done for about half the cost we do it here.

Remember this chart, noticing the dark blue bars, "public expenditures"? What we pay in taxes for Medicare, Medicaid, and military healthcare alone covers 100% of the population in the "single payer" countries.

Thanks for this.

One of the confusing things about the debate is the sloppy way that "for all" versus "for all who want it" has been conflated with "for free" versus "too expensive".

This is a big, important topic. I hope someone starts a thread focused on healthcare / 2020 election. I don't have it in me.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Comprehensive, universal, "free at the point of use" care can be done for about half the cost we do it here.

Remember this chart, noticing the dark blue bars, "public expenditures"? What we pay in taxes for Medicare, Medicaid, and military healthcare alone covers 100% of the population in the "single payer" countries.

A) I'm not disputing any of that. I ultimately have no opinion on the subject.

B) that chart does not include the expenses I'm talking about. Here is an example: there are 40k who die in car accidents. Some portion of them are not receiving medical services for non preventable illness before the wreck. That would be medical costs incurred under UHC not represented on the graph.

C) I have no opinion on the quantity or impact of this. I think it is simply interesting itself.

 

[kellyb]

A) I'm not disputing any of that. I ultimately have no opinion on the subject.

B) that chart does not include the expenses I'm talking about. Here is an example: there are 40k who die in car accidents. Some portion of them are not receiving medical services for non preventable illness before the wreck. That would be medical costs incurred under UHC not represented on the graph.

C) I have no opinion on the quantity or impact of this. I think it is simply interesting itself.

Under-utilization does have some effects which keep costs down. It also has others which make costs higher.

My own sense is that it's actually an economic wash, but well-meaning people kind of suffer from confirmation bias when interpreting the literature, to only notice the times where under-utilization makes it more expensive in the end.

I'm reminded of this, too:
https://www.psandman.com/articles/berreth.htm

But I kept noticing that the good guys weren’t exactly honest either. In 1981 I started doing communication work with the American Cancer Society. One of the big ACS activities, then as now, was corporate smoking cessation programs. In order to help sell these programs to companies, we commissioned an economist to do a study of the economic impact of employee smoking on companies. We expected to show a big cost due to medical expenses. Instead, the study came out showing that employees who smoked actually saved their company money (pension money and healthcare money) by dying more rapidly after retirement. It simply wasn’t in a company’s economic interests to support smoking cessation.

What do you think we did with the study results? We suppressed them, and continued to tell companies they would benefit economically from sponsoring ACS smoking cessation clinics for their employees. I argued for candor, or at least for dropping the false argument. I lost. I was told pretty explicitly that public health was a higher value than transparency. (Metropolitan Edison had needed to find a way to mislead without actually lying. The American Cancer Society was okay with just lying.)

 

[BobTheCoward]

Under-utilization does have some effects which keep costs down. It also has others which make costs higher.

My own sense is that it's actually an economic wash, but well-meaning people kind of suffer from confirmation bias when interpreting the literature, to only notice the times where under-utilization makes it more expensive in the end.

I'm reminded of this, too:
https://www.psandman.com/articles/berreth.htm

And my point really wasn't about costs, but the meta discussion around the debate.

The more Warren argues how bad the current situation is, the less credible her claim that it will cost less.

I think once the debate is outside the primary,the campaign is going to emphasize the stories of the examples of underutilization that keeps costs down. But that undercuts the message.

 

[kellyb]

I think once the debate is outside the primary,the campaign is going to emphasize the stories of the examples of underutilization that keeps costs down.

Why is the world would they do that?

 

[Belz...]

You're wasting your time, Kelly.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Why is the world would they do that?

To humanize the argument. Campaigns tell stories about middle class Americans just like us suffering because policy X is not in place.

But the most sympathetic stories I bet are going to be stories technically of underutilization.

 

[kellyb]

To humanize the argument. Campaigns tell stories about middle class Americans just like us suffering because policy X is not in place.

But the most sympathetic stories I bet are going to be stories technically of underutilization.

I'm not expecting her to even campaign on M4A a whole lot.

After getting elected (Maude willing), she has a pretty long anti-corruption to-do list she's wanting to tackle before trying for M4A.

 

[Dr. Keith]

OMG, all Democrats are not on the same page. What a tragedy.

Reminds me of "GOP unity" back when Trump was calling Ted Cruz's wife ugly and suggesting that Cruz's father was involved in the Kennedy assignation.

 

[ArchSas]

The point is that crazy talk hurts Democtatic chances. How is that throwing progressives under the bus?

By using conservative framing to make their ideas sound crazy, at the expense of shutting down discussion and prop up the "sane" candidates. The same way any other form of respectability politics works. And that's consistently been part of the arguments for the "moderate" candidates like Biden and Klobuchar (both of which Maher has been vocal about supporting recently): the idea that you can't talk about progressive ideas, and only a moderate can actually be successful because anything too left will turn off all those moderate voters out there.

Even when not framed through a conservative lens, it's stall part of the weird gamification of politics that's been been increasing since Nate Silver and others like him have gotten bigger in the public discourse. I'd rather people just support the ideas they like and have honest discussions without resorting to rhetorical strategy games.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Is Beto an enemy plant sent to derail Democratic campaigns?

Doubtful. Believe it or not he was one of the original Cult of the Dead Cow members, a computer hacker gang from Silicon Valley in the early days.

 

[theprestige]

Doubtful. Believe it or not he was one of the original Cult of the Dead Cow members, a computer hacker gang from Silicon Valley in the early days.

That's when the KGB got to him. He's been a Russian sleeper agent ever since.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Perhaps Joe can quote that in his signature and stop the lecture rants! Not that those aren't fun to read, Joe: I'm developing an app that analyzes texts to detect rising blood pressure in the author. My compliments upon the amazing strength of your aortic walls!

Oh come on.

We're got nothing but Whataboutism and Contrarian trolling from the Trumpers (at least those who are still capable of full sentences.)

We've got doom and gloom Democrats salivating at the idea of the revolution starting as if that's going to go well for anyone.

And we've got a lot of "You're doing a great job Dems, don't even CONSIDER the idea of doing anything different or having an concept of self reflection or constructive criticism."

Given all that I'm not some crazy outsider over hyping some crazy outside the fringe opinion.

And again, if you don't like it, ignore it. Or play the "Oh well we're just an internet discussion board and nothing we're talking about matters or will make a difference anyway" which over works better.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

We've got doom and gloom Democrats salivating at the idea of the revolution starting as if that's going to go well for anyone.

...

Who is 'we' and what's your evidence?

 

[TragicMonkey]

Oh come on.

We're got nothing but Whataboutism and Contrarian trolling from the Trumpers (at least those who are still capable of full sentences.)

We've got doom and gloom Democrats salivating at the idea of the revolution starting as if that's going to go well for anyone.

And we've got a lot of "You're doing a great job Dems, don't even CONSIDER the idea of doing anything different or having an concept of self reflection or constructive criticism."

Given all that I'm not some crazy outsider over hyping some crazy outside the fringe opinion.

And again, if you don't like it, ignore it. Or play the "Oh well we're just an internet discussion board and nothing we're talking about matters or will make a difference anyway" which over works better.

150/108. I advise reducing sodium intake.