So we can't be opposed to the TPP 'cause it's Obama's thing, but ...

[Scuba]

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/287628-centrist-dems-wary-of-public-option-push

Centrist Dems wary of public option push

But among more centrist members of the Senate, where the “public option” was stopped in 2009, there is little enthusiasm for the idea. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D), who represents conservative-leaning North Dakota, pushed back the hardest. “I think it's critically important that we stop trying to complicate healthcare and we start taking a look at what needs to be fixed in ObamaCare,” Heitkamp said. “Until we actually have those conversations and we have bipartisan support, I think it's unrealistic to assume that we're going to see any kind of expansion of care.”

...

Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), another Democrat from a red-leaning state, referred questions to his press office when asked if he supported a public option. His press office did not respond to inquiries.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who survived a reelection scare in 2014, was noncommittal on the question of a public option, pivoting to a different change he’d like to see in ObamaCare. He called for addressing the requirement in ObamaCare for providing coverage to people who work more than 30 hours per week. Critics of the law say that requirement has created an incentive for employers be push people into part-time positions. “As we talk about other options we also have to address things like [the] 29 to 30 hour cliff,” Warner said. That “cliff” is an issue usually raised by Republicans.

While the public option has been embraced in the liberal-leaning quarters of the party, more centrist Democrats simply said they were unsure and had to study the details. “I'd have to see it first to see; it's a big term,” Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said when asked about Obama’s public option proposal.

[ehrnst]

1. Not getting the connection to TPP. (nt)

[seabeyond]

2. You can be opposed to whatever you want to be. Why do people start an argument with a false base?

[ehrnst]

11. Thank you for clarifying what I was thinking. (nt)

[NurseJackie]

16. :-P

Man: Ah. I'd like to have an argument, please.

Receptionist: Certainly sir. Have you been here before?

Man: No, this is my first time.

Receptionist: I see. Well, do you want to have the full argument, or were you thinking of taking a course?

Man: Well, what would be the cost?

Receptionist: Well, It's one pound for a five minute argument, but only eight pounds for a course of ten.

Man: Well, I think it's probably best if I start with the one and then see how it goes from there, okay?

Receptionist: Fine. I'll see who's free at the moment.

[bluedye33139]

3. My TPP ambivalence

I am one of those evil centrists that everyone fears. I want a society without inherited wealth, with an equal playing field, with no racial or gender-based discrimination, and I want strong environmental protections and sustainability. But I also believe that people should be able to have businesses, start businesses, own things, sell things, sell stock, etc., -- and I believe that international trade works best when the countries involved sit down and negotiate trade treaties.

I was on the fence about NAFTA and I am still skeptical of claims that NAFTA is the engine of our doom. Most analyses show that the jobs "lost" are virtually equal to the jobs "gained" by increases in export and by growth in other industries. The Common Market similarly boosted trade between the nations in that market. I can't hate on trade, because I believe that economic security and a healthy employment environment is a human need, and I believe that privately held businesses and companies and corporations are the primary engine of economic stability.

I am at this point comfortable with the party's opposition to the TPP, but I am alarmed that many of my fellow Democrats are opposed to the TPP because "it's corporatist" or "business is evil" or the blanket allegations that anti-capitalists have made about the agreement. The fact is that trade will continue between the Pacific nations whether or not this treaty goes into place. If there are planks in the TPP that people want to change, I would love to see what those planks are -- but scratching in the dirt of the anti-TPP discourse, I find few convincing arguments. Opposition to the TPP seems to be strongest among people who think it's evil for one person to sell something to another person, people opposed to commerce in general, and -- that ain't me.

[zipplewrath]

6. It's unbalanced

Our trade treaties allow for the free movement of capital and goods. However, it does not allow the free movement of labor, or the extension of labor unions. So they are good for business and not so good for workers. An awful lot of the opposition to the TPP and trade treaties in general are based upon this fact.

[bluedye33139]

7. Free immigration only

You would only support a trade treaty if it allowed for unlimited immigration? I don't think that would be reasonable.

[zipplewrath]

8. Exactly

Free trade, virtually by definition, neither exists, nor CAN exist because it would require the free flow of labor. It would require that French doctors could practice here, as well as French lawyers. It would also require that labor unions be transnational, much like intellectual property rights are. Currently trade treaties exist to enhance the profit potential of private companies. It is sold as some sort of "trickle down" benefit for the worker.

[bluedye33139]

12. I'm with you on that

There cannot be free trade in terms of unrestricted commerce because the market is something that is set up by the liberal state. The state sets up the conditions and polices the participants, and that is what trade has been for the past few centuries.

Allowing several states to come together seems like the next logical step. It is the duty of government to regulate commerce, and I believe it would be a good idea for international Commerce to be regulated by treaties and agreements.

[zipplewrath]

13. International regulation

In order for the international trade to work "correctly" there has to be the same kinds of "regulations" that all industrialized nations tend to have. Workman's comp, SS, EEOC, etc. or at least their equivalent. But the treaties rarely, if ever, really address these issues. They are about property rights and taxes.

[bluedye33139]

14. Demand All Nations obey American Standards?

You believe that there should only be treaties if the participatory nations agree to obey all American labor statutes? Including all wage requirements, unemployment, etcetera? Again, this does not seem to me to be a reasonable demand. It would make just as much sense for the United States to be required to match wages in Vietnam.

[zipplewrath]

15. Common standards

International trade treaties must ensure that workers are treated "equivalently". Quite honestly, we'd have to raise a few standards of our own to keep up with other countries.

[bluedye33139]

17. Yet

So the objection to the TPP is that we cannot control labor practices in other countries by decree. And consequently the treaty and all trade treaties are wrong?

Like I said earlier, my observation is that people who oppose the TPP do so because they are opposed to commerce or for some reason not actually connected to any part of the TPP. I do not believe that these observations about our inability to control other nations is a legitimate flaw of the TPP.

[zipplewrath]

21. Not exactly

Trade must be negotiated to address labor and the exchange of goods and capital. Our trade treaties no longer do that and in fact are almost totally focused on eliminating restrictions to the free flow of capital and goods. We can have trade, but we need to ensure that the work forces are treated with equal concern. And of course when the two labor systems CAN'T be balanced, that's when tariffs come into play.

The objection to the TPP is that it doesn't protect labor OR the environment anywhere near the protections for intellectual property.

[bluedye33139]

22. So if TPP were kept intact, but labor/environment protection added

So if the TPP were kept intact, but labor/environment protection added, you would support it.

As I've mentioned a few times in this thread, my own attitude is that the TPP was a flawed piece of work, but I've carefully listened to critics of it and I always come away with a weird sense that people are opposing the TPP without even wanting to know what its provisions are: "Anti-capitalist ideology says that trade is bad, so trade treaties are bad, and so the TPP must be opposed." It's a kind of dogmatic and ideological thinking that valorizes pure ideology over real-world action.

I get that you want to raise labor standards worldwide and to be helpful to the poor in other nations, but global trade has vastly improved the lives of the poorest global citizens in the past hundred years. The Pacific Rim nations have all seen immense economic growth, and I would like to see the United States engage with its trade partners even more.

Sometimes, I think that the mistake was to have the negotiators work in secret for years. It invited all kinds of conspiracy-theory thinking, and by the time that the TPP details were ready to be made public, there was already a gigantic wall of discourse built up against it, mostly made up of anti-capitalist cliches.

[zipplewrath]

23. Basically

It's not so much that I want to raise the labor standards. I mean, I don't mind if we do. I just want labor to be "competing" in essence on a "level field" so to speak. I also don't want to see effective slave labor to be a path to profits for multinationals. Multiple ways to do that, but TPP doesn't really even try.

[bluedye33139]

24. Why not actually work to improve labor standards worldwide?

Why not work to improve labor conditions worldwide?

[zipplewrath]

25. As I said

I don't mind if we do, but there are a lot of countries and it's not necessarily my goal to fix them all right now. In the mean time, I can manage the trade problem through other means.

[bluedye33139]

28. Fair enough. Thank you.

Fair enough. Thank you.

[Arazi]

30. The TPP can't be revised or altered now

[Hoyt]

27. God forbid Toyota or Airbus build a plant in rural Mississippi or Alabama.

[bluedye33139]

29. I disagree

[yallerdawg]

26. You are far from alone!

Including a damn fine Democratic president who, as far as I can tell, has one of the finest records of honesty and integrity we have seen in our lifetimes!

[WDIM]

4. How to simplify healthcare

You set an appoinment and are seen by the doctor simple.

Instead of paying the tax to a for profit multinational corporation you pay the tax to Medicare.

Affordable college education for healthcare providers will increase access.

[ehrnst]

5. Not that simple in reality, which is far, far more complicated

"But while a single-payer system would undoubtedly produce efficiencies, it would also bring huge disruptions. Said Starr, single-payer supporters “haven’t worked through the consequences.”

One of the biggest is exactly how to redistribute literally trillions of dollars. The problem, said Harold Pollack, a professor at the University of Chicago, is that the change will create losers as well as winners.

“Precisely the thing that is a feature for single-payer proponents is a bug for everyone who provides goods and services for the medical economy,” he said, since their profits — and possibly their incomes — could be cut.

And it’s not just the private insurance industry (which would effectively be put out of business) that could feel the impact to the bottom line. Parts of the health care industry that lawmakers want to help, like rural hospitals, could inadvertently get hurt, too. Many rural hospitals get paid so little by Medicare that they only survive on higher private insurance payments. Yet under single-payer, those payments would go away and some could not make it financially. “You would not want to wipe out a third of the hospitals in Minnesota by accident,” Pollack said. “And you could,” if payments to hospitals end up too low."

http://khn.org/news/democrats-unite-but-what-happened-to-medicare-for-all/

Just like repaving all the streets at the same time might sound efficient on paper, in reality, it would cause gridlock for the time in which it is being implemented.

[WDIM]

9. Its not that difficult almost every other country

Has done it.

We can spend trillions on bombs, spying, war and death and build million dollar gas stations in the middle of nowhere and pay for highways to nowhere. I think we could figure out how to ensure anybody who needs medical treatment can receive it and the providers can be paid.

Its all kubuki theater to make people think it can't be done.

[ehrnst]

10. We are not every other country.

And just because you think something should be simple doesn't make it so. And no, not every other country has single payer, even in Europe. Many have combinations of private and public payers to achieve universal health care coverage (of which single payer is a subset.)

I am always doubtful when someone points to a problem that has been that way for years, and says the solution is "simple." Like, "If you close Planned Parenthood, then you reduce abortions. They are the largest single provider, right?"

If it sounds too "simple" to be true, then chances are, it is. I'll trust the people who are experts on health care policy on the health care system, like I trust climate scientists on climate change.

[truebluegreen]

18. Yah, we are exceptional.

[George Eliot]

20. Good one.

[George Eliot]

19. Right. The Kochs, the lobbyists, and the CEOS. Got it.