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| Re: 58 percent of Americans want a third political party (1229242) | |||
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Re: 58 percent of Americans want a third political party |
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Posted by Nilet on Fri Sep 26 18:57:37 2014, in response to Re: 58 percent of Americans want a third political party, posted by SLRT on Fri Sep 26 15:10:23 2014. Probably about 75% of the people with actual beliefs are about as liberal as I am or more— keeping in mind that this excludes the low information voters who cast ballots based on tribal identity or advertising or who they'd rather have a beer with but don't really have any actual political beliefs as such.If you ignore the people who vote based on "facts" that can be trivially demonstrated as objectively false (like white supremacy, or global warming denialism, or the ever-popular "I support giving free money to rich people because I just know I'm going to be rich in ten years!") then it's probably more like 95% at least in the general ballpark. If you could force everyone to listen to the evidence and evaluate it rationally, free from ingrained biases, then it would be roughly 100% give or take a few sociopaths. If you don't believe me, grab any random sampling of Americans and ask them what they prefer— the catch is, you're not allowed to use the common names of laws and policies (like "Obamacare" or "the Affordable Care Act" or "single payer") and you're certainly not allowed to use terms like "liberal" or "conservative" or the names of specific candidates or parties. You're only allowed to describe each policy by its inevitable results if properly implemented. So "single payer" becomes something like "Any person can see any doctor when they get sick, all medical treatments are covered as long as they cost less than $129,000 per year the patient is expected to live afterwards, pretty much all health care is completely free, but it might take a little longer to get a non-urgent appointment and your taxes will be increased by a very small amount. Of each dollar spent on health care, about $0.02 is eaten up by overhead and administration, and health care costs are kept low by the system's efficiency." The ACA becomes something like "Every person is required to have health insurance from a private company. Large employers are required to provide it for full-time employees; everyone else is able to purchase it from a marketplace that organises individuals to receive group discounts on premiums. People with low income will receive a subsidy to offset the cost of the premiums. Insurance companies are required to provide a certain minimum level of coverage, but are otherwise free to choose whether to pay for your health care or not, and there is no limit on the amount you can be required to spend out of pocket. Insurance companies are not permitted to abruptly drop your coverage when you get sick, however they can choose not to cover your treatment unless it falls under the minimum coverage required by law. People who can't afford insurance premiums even with subsidies receive health care through a spotty and generally underfunded government program. Of each dollar spent on health care, about $0.20 is eaten up by overhead and administration and health care costs are kept high both by natural inefficiencies in the system and by deliberate inefficiencies required by law." And the pre-ACA system that today's Republicans are clamouring to return to becomes: "You must pay all of your health care expenses out of pocket. Health insurance is available, and your employer may provide it, but there is no guarantee that they will, nor any guarantee that your insurance will cover anything if you do have it. Of each dollar spent on health care, upwards of $0.50 may be eaten by overhead and administration, and health care costs are kept extremely high by the system's natural inefficiencies." Which would you pick? |
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