Is electability a legitimate issue to run on?

Electability is a perfectly reasonable argument for a candidate to make for herself. I think it’s why Bernie Sanders is the obvious choice. Bernie has the best shot (by far) of defeating Trump. Voting for anyone else in the primary is really rolling the dice for a 2-term Trump presidency.

Electability is definately an argument for running, but I wouldn’t focus on that one ‘issue’ like Biden and his wife appear to be.

Frankly, I think Hillary’s loss in 2016 really made a major impact on campaigning moving forward.

Being a piece of soggy white bread, so that people without teeth can eat you, is not exactly adding to your “electability”.
Especially not if there are spots of mold already forming.

I mean, during his stint as VP, the image he established for himself, is that of being a doddering fool.
How can he possibly make the argument about being more electable than his competitors?

@LostInParadise I’m with you! The primary is the time to vote for the candidate you really want. The final vote between the candidates who won the nominations from their parties is when you fall in line, and maybe vote for someone you don’t love, but you don’t want to risk splitting votes.

Biden is stuck in the dangerous rut that twice disabled Hillary. It’s the classic delusion of “it’s my turn.” Democratic machine politics is no longer the animal it was in the days when he took up the trade. Biden is a throwback to the Democratic party of LBJ. Ordinarily he would be a draw to those blue collar lunch box democrats filched by Trump. But it is the truth of the rust belt which betrays the simple fact that the democrats have joined their Republican counterparts in hanging that very crowd out to dry. I feel kind of bad for Biden. That good old time religion ain’t gonna do it.

@JLeslie “The final vote between the candidates who won the nominations from their parties is when you fall in line”

I refuse to fall in line. I hope others do too. When the Democratic Party Establishment realizes that people refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils, that may be what it takes to prevent them for trying to rig the fucking primaries. Notice how they managed to keep Tulsi Gabbard off the debate stage because she didn’t qualify based on polls that the DNC decided were “acceptable” (with 0 transparency).

Not the only issue, but it is something to factor in.

I like some of what Gabbard says (but not much) – but she has zero chance of being elected. So even if I agreed 100% with her, a vote for her would be wasted.

@elbanditoroso ”...she has zero chance of being elected…”

Gabbard was the most searched candidate after the second debate (for a second time). She has way more individual donors than several of the candidates in the 3rd debate. She hits the minimum polling in 9 polls, but the DNC decided to only count 2 of them. The margin of error is much larger than the thresholds the DNC is using to exclude candidates. Gabbard is infinitely more likely to win over someone like Klobuchar. Keeping her out of the conversation is the DNC’s way of shielding sellouts like Kamala from attacks. I also think Gabbard could end up as a VP option and the American people deserve to hear her platform.

”...a vote for her would be wasted.”

I just wanted to point out how this is the mentality that resulted in the election of Trump. I think it’s time for Clinton supporters to leave the strategy to everyone else.

Those are the same tactics they used against Sanders in ‘16, shutting him out, and all.
Which pissed a lot of people off and made them revenge vote for Drumpf.

And having learned nothing at all, they are doing it again, to push Biden. And it will have the same effect.

Your only hope is, that Drumpf being an embarrassment to the planet and the human species as a whole (he just claimed that the meteorologists, who had to correct him after he retardedly claimed that the hurricane will hit alabama, are wrong, because the man is incapable of admitting any mistake), will be enough to make people vote for Mr. Alzheimers.
And that is by no means a given.

It just seems so circular to me: people should vote for this candidate because people will vote for this candidate. Is that really the best we can do?

@gorillapaws Wait, I’m with you on that regarding the primaries. I hate how the media and the party don’t give some candidates a chance to be heard. They completely ignored Andrew Yang the first debate. Actually, the first debate was an unfair piece of garbage all around. I think there was enough outcry that they made it a little better the second debate. Still, there is so much steering and propaganda it’s despicable. I think all candidates should get to be heard. These debates don’t allow for in depth answers.

I’m talking about the people who didn’t vote at all or wrote in someone instead of voting for Hillary at the end in the last election. Lots of Democrats who were Bernie supporters didn’t fall in to line at the end. I was a Hillary fan, but I encouraged friends to vote for Bernie in the primaries who liked him. I think vote your conscience in the primaries.

For anyone who is interested, here is an hour long interview with Sanders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O-iLk1G_ng

@JLeslie I voted for Jill Stein in the General, and I would do it again.

If the DNC is allowed to believe that they can cheat in the primaries, because people will end up voting for the “DNC approved” candidate in the General anyways (lesser of two evils), then a vote for Clinton was actually positively reinforcing the DNC’s behavior and encouraging them to cheat in the future. I think encouraging the DNC to rig elections was a worse outcome than Trump—especially because Clinton had no chance of winning.

@gorillapaws I understand your logic. I think it’s a really tough dilemma.

I’m not sure why you say Clinton had no chance. She had the popular vote. I don’t know if all the votes for independents and write-ins had gone to Hillary if it would have given her the win? I never investigated that possibility. Most people I know who didn’t vote or did a write-in thought Hillary had it in the bag.

I thought Jill Stein was Green Party? Are you saying she would have run as a Democrat if she thought she had a chance with the party?

Electability is just a way of saying “moderate enough to get the extra votes necessary to win the election”. If that is your only claim to fame…that you are “electable”, that isn’t really enough of a reason to vote for you, in my opinion.

Electability in itself is not enough for any politician, of course, but first and foremost, if they’re not electable, then they may as well not bother.

Of course. Electability encompasses so many things.

@kritiper Trump won. He didnt really have that electability factor for many people. I think it was partly his extreme confidence.

Or just his extreme ego in the face of extreme Democratic uncertainty in a female candidate, which many don’t think we were ready for. There are so many Americans who are so very confrontational, always looking for a fight. Like those who carry out rampant killings that are occurring almost daily. I wonder how many of those shooters voted for Trump…
I also feel that, since the polls indicated that Hillary would win, many Democrats didn’t vote because they believed the election was in the bag, so their votes weren’t needed.

And let’s not forget that Trump thought that if he got elected he would be King (so it seems) and be able to do whatever he wanted, and many of those who voted for him probably (so it seems) thought the same thing.

@kritiper: Didn’t Hillary win the popular vote? I thought she did. Therefore, many Americans did vote but despite that, with the Electoral College, she lost.

I refuse to fall in line. I hope others do too.

This glorious Jill Stein presidency sure is working out great for us all. Good job.

@kritiper I disagree, I think we are ready for a female President.

As far as shooters, we went thru them not long ago and listed known political affiliations on another thread.

I’m certainly not enamoured of Trump, but polls are always questionable. I wouldnt underestimate him again.

I think the main reason we don’t have a female president is because women haven’t run for President very often. It’s statistics. They have to run to be voted for. What is it maybe 4 women in the past have run for President out of the 400 men over time? I completely made up those numbers, I don’t know what the numbers actually are.

Hillary did win the popular vote, people will obviously vote for a woman. I knew a lot of people who wanted Elizabeth Dole to run for President back in the day. Did she ever put her hat in at all? I don’t remember.

I don’t care about the sex of the candidate, I care about the policies. I was hoping Carly Fiorina had done better. I think she was a no-nonsense sort of candidate. I liked her idea of reducing the tax code from the volumes it currently is to a couple pages.

Ah yes, Fiorina, the one that nearly ran HP into the ground, and was literally forced by the board to resign her position.
Poster child for the conservative “business-person candidate”.
What a great choice that would have been.

@JLeslie “I’m not sure why you say Clinton had no chance.”

If you look at my previous posts, you’ll see I was calling it back in the summer of 2016 that Clinton’s campaign was doomed. My thesis was that Clinton would loose the South and the Rust Belt, making a win in the electoral college a mathematical impossibility. She got totally crushed in the electoral college, which (like it or not) is the system that actually counts.

@Call_Me_Jay “This glorious Jill Stein presidency sure is working out great for us all. Good job.”

You can try to voter shame me if you want, but the truth of the matter is that a candidate needs to EARN my fucking vote—they’re not entitled to it. Clinton didn’t earn my vote, and the reason she lost is that people didn’t turn out (because she wasn’t inspiring and couldn’t speak credibly to the serious issues the working class was facing), not because people turned out to vote 3rd party. Furthermore, Clinton and her team rigged the primaries, and I cannot support a candidate or party that disenfranchised it’s own members.

Jill Stein was the candidate on the ballot that I agreed with the most. I voted for her and I would do it again, ESPECIALLY knowing that Clinton was doomed to loose. If more had voted for Stein, perhaps we wouldn’t have a DNC run by a scumbag like Tom Perez. Perhaps Tusli Gabbard would be included in the 3rd debate, Perhaps the DNC wouldn’t have reversed the ban on fossil fuel donations. Perhaps we would have Democratic leadership that would have the chutzpah to impeach Trump, instead of keeping him in office because he helps them raise money (because of outrage).

@gorillapaws If Democrats had united after the primary was decided Clinton might have won. I disagree it was a given she would lose. I have a lot of Facebook friends who were relentless in their venom for Democrats who were either pro-Hillary, or simply saying we need to vote for her to make sure Trump doesn’t win. When I say venom, I mean true bullying, shaming, and hard core peer pressure. The technique works.

Maybe you called it right because in your circles you saw a lot of people wouldn’t vote for Hillary. My only clue to that were some jellies here who seemed adamant Hillary was some sort of an evil woman. Some jellies truly shocked me in how they talked about the election and Hillary. Not that I think Hillary, her campaign, or the Party are completely pure, I don’t, I’m not happy with some things that happened.

I was not surprised Trump got so much support, and I wasn’t as offended by him as some people, but I did not think he would win. I thought more Republicans would sit the election out, and I hoped Democrats would come together and vote for Hillary.

I did feel sure PA would go for Trump, and I was worried about MI, OH, and FL. I know too many people from PA who are quick to stereotype groups and not in a nice light. I felt Trump spoke their language. Those particular Pennsylvanians, not all Pennsylvanians.

You can try to voter shame

I see this is an emotional issue for you rather than a rational one. Identifying the problem is the first step towards fixing behavioral pathologies. This is a start.

The problem you need to identify is the fact that the Democratic party is entrenched in the corporatist status quo, and wants to field candidates that are positioned firmly in that milieu.
In terms of ideals and values, beyond paying lip-service to progressivism, the party stands for nothing, its preferred candidates stand for nothing, candidates that do stand for something are subjected to machinations and intrigue to force them out.

While the republicans can galvanise and rally their voters with brash, loudmouth demagogues, the Democrats, when they push milquetoast people like Clinton and Biden, inspire no one, and turn off many others with their willful sabotage of candidates that would be the inspiring ones.

The problem you need to recognise, is that “the lesser of two evils”, and “the devil you know”, are not valid arguments for a candidate.
They are so invalid, in fact, that almost half of all potential voters do not bother showing up in the first place.
And when people decide to vote for canidates they want to vote for, instead of a candidate that they hate just a bit less than the other guy, it is not them that has a problem with making rational decisions.
It is you that has the problem.

@ragingloli Here’s where your opinion falls flat. Well, actually, there are several areas. The first is that you don’t live in this country. Your view of our government or of our POTUS are second or third hand at best. Secondly, you want to discount reasons that someone might vote for someone. You want to condense it all into one happy little bucket so you can discount it. Thirdly, you spout the liberal talking points but fail to actually look at them realistically. When you don’t open up to honest reality, your views take on the quality of meaningless babble. Want an example? Okay. Universal Healthcare. Yep, it exists in many civilized countries. But in many, many of those cases, it doesn’t cover everything. There are long waiting lines. There are bureaucrats making decisions on if something is necessary or not. And that is why in most of those civilized countries with universal healthcare, people have to buy healthcare insurance to allow them to get the treatments they might need in a timeframe they need them. But don’t bring that up….it hurts your claim. Also, since you don’t live in this country, you don’t see the horrible fiscal irresponsibility by our federal government. Entrusting them to control our healthcare would be catastrophic. Again…don’t address that…it hurts your claims.

As usual, you have nothing of value to say.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MurderedByWords/comments/cs4lgg/imagine_thinking_that_american_healthcare_is/

@JLeslie “If Democrats had united after the primary was decided Clinton might have won.”

Even if everyone who voted for Jill Stein had voted for Clinton, she still would have been destroyed in the Electoral College. There was nothing to unite behind. Her message was uninspiring, and her credibility was destroyed when the truth about her came to light. When your opponent can get caught joking about grabbing women by the pussy and you still loose, that demonstrates just how profoundly terrible you are as a candidate. Clinton was unelectable, it’s just that the corporate media fooled a lot of people into thinking she was the front-runner.

There was no path to victory for Clinton. No matter how much noise the establishment pundits try to inject into the conversation, the overall message is clear: if you don’t inspire your voters, they’re going to stay home. People don’t get fired up for milquetoast policy and vapid platitudes. People won’t turn out to vote for the lesser of two evils. The election wasn’t about Russian twitter bots, or Jill Stein. It was a rejection of “moderate,” status-quo and incremental policy. The working class is hurting badly, and the Democrats have abandoned them decades ago in favor of neoliberal Corporatism and big checks.

@Call_Me_Jay So Tbogg is the arbiter of what is and isn’t realistic? You are? Corporate owned media (i.e. AT&T, Comcast, Disney corp., Jeff Bezos…) is?

Look at what FDR was able to accomplish with the New Deal. I refuse to accept that my only choices going forward are between “Republican” and DNC-approved “Republican Lite.”

It’s ironic that the people who are telling us that Bernie is unrealistic when he would have slaughtered Trump in 2016, are the same ones who instead championed the worst Presidential candidate in modern history (anyone who loses to Trump is a terrible candidate). I can only hope they’re rational enough to realize that trying the same thing again with another Republican-Lite candidate like Biden or Harris will have the same results as last time.

@seawulf575 ”[government-run, single-payer, universal healthcare] doesn’t cover everything. There are long waiting lines. There are bureaucrats making decisions on if something is necessary or not.”

This happens all of the time in the US. We had a patient once who was an executive of a company you would recognize and his insurance wanted him to have procedures on 2 different legs in the same day (because it was several hundred dollars cheaper). We appealed the decision and got on the phone in a peer-to-peer appeal to explain that the legs have to be done on separate days because it would require too much lidocane (local anesthesia) and could cause the patient to have a stroke. The response from the Insurance company’s doctor was to do the second procedure without anesthesia. We have NEVER had a government bureaucrat from Medicare or Medicaid suggest something crazy like that. In fact, they are much easier to work with than private insurance. All of our patients have to wait for care by the way. People with “government run” plans like Medicare and Medicaid have the shortest conservative therapy waiting period, some of the private plans are double the length (platinum, gold, silver plan: it’s all the same wait). Furthermore, in North Carolina, patients with Anthem Blue-Cross Blue Shield can only have 1 ablation procedure per leg per lifetime (as an example). In some cases, you will have patients that could need 3 ablation procedures in a single leg. These are people who have been paying into their plans every month, and when they need treatment, they’re told to fuck off. So let’s not kid ourselves about how wonderful American care is. All of those middle-men in the insurance industry need to get paid somehow. We pay 200% per capita and have worse outcomes. Insurance-based care is moronic.

@ragingloli Given that free college and single-payer universal healthcare are equivalent to a “sparkly unicorn,” I’m just wondering what it’s like in Europe day-to-day with all of those sparkly unicorns running about? Are those epic picnics with cupcakes, gumdrops and pudding pops a good time? It’s amazing that you guys figured out how to divide things by zero too!

@gorillapaws I agree with a lot of your post.

“When your opponent can get caught joking about grabbing women by the pussy and you still lose, that demonstrates just how profoundly terrible you are as a candidate.”

_Exactly why all the arguing about who is worse, gets us nowhere.

Look at what FDR was able to accomplish with the New Deal. I refuse to accept that my only choices going forward are between “Republican” and DNC-approved “Republican Lite.”

Your belief is that getting Kavanaugh and Gorsuch on the court is no different than getting someone like Ginsberg or Sotomayer.

It is likely Ginsberg won’t make it to 2021, and she’s going to be replaced with an Alito or a Scalia. Again, good job.

The court will be siding with the corporate interests you claim to oppose. They will be working with Republicans to disenfranchise minority voters, the young, and those in left-leaning regions.

They will work to make sure universal health care isn’t implemented. They will work against consumers and workers. They have been working to reverse the freedoms and civil rights that were hard-won over the last 70 years and they will continue chipping away at them.

They thank you for you support in their efforts. Again, good job. They appreciate your tantrum vote.

@Call_Me_Jay “Your belief is that getting Kavanaugh and Gorsuch on the court is no different than getting someone like Ginsberg or Sotomayer.”

Neoliberalism is how we ended up with Kavanaugh and Gorsch. That’s how the Democrats lost over 1000 seats to Republicans under Obama (giving them the ability to block Garland). We had control of all branches and the Neoliberal “moderates” like yourself made sure to block the progressive change that the country desperately wanted. The result of turning messages of “hope and change” into maintaining the neoliberal status quo is political apathy, low turnout, and a surge of Republican candidates coming to power: enough to block judicial appointments (even conservatives like Garland). The result of pursuing the policies you are suggesting is Donald fucking Trump in the white house. Great job. You are clearly a master of political strategy.

And just in case you’re not paying attention, even if all of us who voted for Jill Stein had held our noses and voted for Clinton, SHE STILL WOULD HAVE FUCKING LOST. Be VERY FUCKING CAREFUL moving forward thinking that we can repeat the same moronic strategy that lost the Democrats 1000 seats, and got Trump into the whitehouse.

@gorillapaws I understand you are for universal healthcare, but let me give you a better example of universal healthcare in this country. The VA. Patients have been neglected, have had to wait years for services and have gotten sub-standard treatment. There are some good treatment centers, but the service really depends on the quality and caring of the treatment center top dog. And that makes the success stories the exception, not the rule. Here is a website that gives plenty of examples of my point

https://myvastory.org

But you can also go to Canada or England and see the same sort of thing…waiting lines, limited services and patients that have to buy insurance to get the treatment they want.

We had control of all branches and the Neoliberal “moderates” like yourself made sure to block the progressive change that the country desperately wanted.

Yeah, look at me, blocking all the legislation. Block this, block that, it’s how I spend my day.

Sure, I’m to the left of about 95% of elected Democrats. But using my awesome powers to force Congress to not implement anything I want is just too good to pass up.

Yep, you sure nailed me on that one.

@seawulf575 I support Bernie’s plan. That means the PAYMENT is socialized, but the care is still provided by privately run hospitals and medical practices.

The US has much worse health outcomes than other countries. We also pay about twice as much (we’ve got those middle-men that need bonuses after all). I’m not sure if you’re being spoofed intellectual diarrhea by conservative propagandists, but I can assure you that for-profit, insurance-based healthcare is the stupidest fucking way to design a healthcare system.

We deal with the frustrations daily. People pay in, and then when it’s time to get the treatment they need, the insurers make it slow and difficult. They throw up roadblocks and obstacles to approving treatments. Imagine trying to explain the medical necessity of a complex and nuanced venous issue in the leg to a pediatrician who doesn’t have a clue about the details of the specialty, and who is paid to maximize profits for his employer.

@Call_Me_Jay “Yeah, look at me, blocking all the legislation.”

Well you’re promoting an ideology that has resulted in Donald Trump. You’re participating in framing the political narrative from a right-wing perspective. You probably don’t realize it, but the best chance the Democrats have to beat Trump in the Electoral College is Bernie Sanders. If you want to help Trump by claiming that progressive policy is fantasy, please go right ahead, but don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re one of the good guys.

“Sure, I’m to the left of about 95% of elected Democrats.”

Ronald Reagan would be to the left of 95% of elected Democrats at this point. That’s how far the party has drifted right under neoliberal leadership.

@seawulf575 There are plenty of examples of people not getting reasonable treatment at the VA, but there are many many many more examples of people who are happy with their care at the VA. At the VA, just like private healthcare, there are some good and bad doctors, and some people fall through the cracks.

I live in a place that has one of the highest concentrations of veterans and almost every vet I talk to is happy with their care at our local clinic. My dad loves the clinic here. My uncle, who uses a different VA clinic, is a Republican, conservative, and a doctor, and was against socialized medicine, until he starts using the VA, and now he has done a total 180 in this one issue.

I have seen many soldiers interviewed about their care at Walter Read who are ver grateful and happy for the care they received.

In Memphis an acquaintance only said good things about his care at the VA, including his treatment when he developed cancer, unfortunately it came back a second time and he eventually died, but he never changed his appreciation for his healthcare.

The “news” loves to report the bad, and for some reason parts of the public will take in the bad reported about the VA system, but not the bad that happens in the private system. Why so selective? Because veterans served and sacrificed for their country? I care about that, but that is a separate topic from what I am talking about, I’m talking about good and bad care and accessibility to healthcare.

I’m currently worried about my kidneys and waiting a month to get the test for when my new insurance kicks in. If I were still in the military system (when I was a dependent I used DOD not VA) that shit would never happen. I would go in and get my blood test now, not later.

@JLeslie I was in the Navy. I experienced first hand, at several bases, how the military healthcare works. I have worked since then with other vets who have utilized the VA healthcare. As I said, it is spotty. The best example I have, personally, was the time I got a sinus infection. I had had them many times before and knew what it was. I had sinus congestion, sinus pressure, and green snot. I went to the corpsman on the sub (the medical person) who agreed I had a sinus infection. He said I needed antibiotics, but he wasn’t allowed to prescribe them (he wasn’t a doctor…more of a medic). So he sent me to the base hospital. He told me to tell them that he agreed with me that it was a sinus infection and they could call if they liked. I went the next morning. It took me several hours to get into see a doctor. When I did, I told him why I was there, what the symptoms were, and that the corpsman agreed it was a sinus infection. He told me “I’m the doctor here, I’ll decide what it is!” He sent me for x-rays. I have never had x-rays for a sinus infection in my life. I went down for the x-rays and the technician doing them took the 5 x-rays of my head he was ordered to take. He screwed up 3 of them and had to re-take them. He screwed up one of those and had to re-take it. 9 x-rays….4 of them due to incompetence. I got back into see the doctor in the afternoon. He looked at the x-rays and said “Here is the problem! You have congested sinuses here and here.” pointing to the spots on the x-rays. Amazing. He diagnosed exactly what I told him when I walked in. So he gave me a prescription. For antibiotics? Oh no! it was for something called Fiorinol. When I finally got back to the sub, it was late afternoon…4 or 5. The corpsman was just getting ready to leave and asked if I got the antibiotics. I told him I didn’t think so and showed him what they prescribed. He was astounded and showed me in his Ready Reference book what Fiorinol was. It is an analgesic made of aspirin, codeine, and phenobarbital. I was given pain killers. Nothing to actually treat the cause, just mask the symptoms. The instructions were to take one when I felt pain. I walked around in a drug induced haze for a week. And because a “doctor” prescribed them, the corpsman could do nothing…not even send me back over to the hospital.
There were other examples, but that was a good one for showing the time wasted, the ineptitude, and the incompetence of the staff and the helplessness of the patient. Now, as I said, there were good medical folks too. The corpsman, for instance, was outstanding. I had some cases of medical staff that were good. But it was spotty. It was always a roll of the dice, even at the same facilities sometimes.

@seawulf575 Like I said there are good and bad doctors in the DOD, VA and private healthcare systems. My girlfriend just went through 4 weeks of horrible sinus pain that should have been treated with antibiotics. The doctor had her do a CT scan! The flipping infection was going around, she was not the only one in the area. It was ridiculous. Unnecessary radiation and cost.

When I had an ectopic pregnancy my insurance was refusing to pay the $450 for the treatment (a shot of medicine). I finally said I’ll pay it and deal with the insurance later and mentioned who my doctor is in the same medical complex. The pharmacist told her if I go to the doctor it will be $45 self pay. Aside from the money in this story, we are talking about a pregnancy in my tube that if left alone can cause bleeding leading to either a $10k surgery or death, and insurance saw fit to refuse the medicine.

My cardiologist won’t write blood work that I need that is well within what she should be testing. That means I had to go to my GP (pay) to get the tests. That’s the only reason I knew a new medication harmed my kidneys, because I asked for the test, and luckily this particular doctor went along. I didn’t have any symptoms.

I did an abdominal ultrasound even though I knew it would be negative. Cost me $250.

Prívate doctors have amputated the wrong limbs, removed the wrong kidneys, they removed appendixes for years unnecessarily, and women’s uteruses, and tonsils, and misprescribed, and performed unnecessary tests (some of which I would call physical abuse) and you can find crap throughout the medical industry no matter where you look.

I see abuse of the Medicare system all around me, so I’m not one of those people who think Medicare For All is the magic to cure all of the problems. There has to be more oversight in general. It doesn’t matter if it’s the government or the insurance or you paying, there are doctors who will be incompetent and doctors who will charge unnecessary fees. At least in DOD and VA the doctor doesn’t make more money for putting you through unnecessary tests.

I feel literally afraid of not being cared for well by doctors. Living in Memphis with Catholic and Baptist hospitals closest to me it made me nervous they would let me die if I had a troubled pregnancy.

I agree with there being bad doctors and idiotic insurance companies. But to me, I see the insurance company bureaucracy the same way I view the government’s bureaucracy. They are not focused on the right thing and they are tied up by their own rules. ANY time you start including a bureaucracy into healthcare decision making, you are giving up some of your rights to determine what treatment might be needed. The difference between the current system and universal healthcare is that the bureaucracy in universal healthcare is even bigger and dumber than it is now. But that is my opinion.
Medical treatment should be decided between a patient and their doctor….not some bureaucracy. If the insurance company wants a second opinion for an expensive treatment, that would be fine in my book, but they should not get to tell you that treatments are not going to be covered because they don’t like the price. And, as I showed with my example, with socialized medicine, you lose that same option. The bureaucrats take an active hand in determining what treatment you are entitled to.

@seawulf575 That’s right, they are both bureaucracies. Large corporations that have a lot of power are just like governments in terms of how they can control people’s lives.

However, the insurance industry is most interested in their bottom line, not the healthcare. The governments worry about bottom line too (sometimes not enough, sometimes too much) not their main goal would be providing health care.

Both the government systems and private systems control the doctors to some extent. Telling doctors what they can prescribe what tests and what treatments are covered etc.

If you are in a socialized system all the doctors are in the system. Well, sort of anyway. I know in the VA you are in a region, and if you move out of that region you have to do some paperwork, but in private insurance you might not be covered at all outside of your state, only certain doctors take your insurance, etc.

If you are on a base you might only have 1 or 2 doctors if it’s a small medical facility. So, then you feel at their mercy with little options, similar to a small town in rural America. I had my medical treatment at Bethesda Naval so I had a large medical center when I was in the DOD medical system.