What the hell is going on in Vermont?

[camac.livejournal.com]

Ok I was driving back from the animal shelter today when I heard something incredible on NPR. I haven't seen any cartoons about it but this shit is important so I'll just post a video with the wonderfully animated and sometimes funny Rachel Maddow talking about it:

This is kind of amazing. I hope other New England states pick up on this idea and find the courage to come up with similar plans. I'm looking at you RI.

Comments

[thebigbadbutch.livejournal.com]

Excellent.

[jlc20thmaine.livejournal.com]

So despite that fact single payer is not successful in any country, you still think it's a good idea.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Such as which countries?

[jlc20thmaine.livejournal.com]

Cuba, Canada, GB, ...

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

What's wrong in Canada? And if you mean GB as in Great Britain, they don't have single payer, they have nationalized healthcare.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Doh!

[taiki.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with the Canadian system?

[new-wave-witch.livejournal.com]

It's not FREEDOM enough!

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

Freedom, freedom, freedom, OI!

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Well, this one Canadian guy said he knew somebody whose relative came over here for an expensive operation.

[wight1984.livejournal.com]

Did you really think that people were going to just take it as obviously true that Canadian and British healthcare is 'not successful'?

Personally, one of the things that thrills me about being British is having an NHS and not having to deal with the way places like the US do healthcare.

[mikepictor.livejournal.com]

You're so cute. Don't ever change.

Someone needs to cling to those delusions.

[namey.livejournal.com]

 

[madscience.livejournal.com]

The only way I can see you making any sort of sense here is if you're defining "successful" as "insanely lucrative".

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

So despite that fact single payer is not successful in any country

Show me those facts, pl0x.

(edited for typo)

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Works here, but we have combined UHC, Single Payer and Private Insurance. We get the best of all worlds.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Single-payer always seemed like the best solution for businesses to me. No wrangling with multiple insurance companies, and just let the doctors do the doctoring.

[camac.livejournal.com]

Yeah, seems like a much more business friendly option to me.
Hey businesses, don't worry about health care costs for your employees, we got it covered. Or better yet they can translate those old health care costs into higher wages, though I wont hold my breath.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

The US has lost business to Canada over it (e.g. several automotive plants that originally were going to be built here in the states went to Canada due to high health care costs in the U.S.)

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Health care attached to employment is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. Talk about the road to serfdom.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I think this is an older clip? Didn't it pass the Vermont Senate and the governor signed it into law. I think the next step is for Vermont to get Congress to approve its exemption.

[camac.livejournal.com]

Yeah I guess it's over a month old, my bad, funny that the first I heard of this news was today on NPR.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

This won't end well for Vermont.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

If it does end well, will you change your tune? :P

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Absolutely, but I'm not too worried.

[blueduck37.livejournal.com]

And if it ends up saving Vermont (the state itself, local businesses, etc etc) money, and becomes very popular, will you agree that other states nationwide should implement it?

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

You need to set some rules on what "success" is now, otherwise those goalposts will shift faster that a politician looking at an opinion poll.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

How have I moved the goalposts? "It saves money and is popular" is not in and of itself a reason to favor a policy. There are still many, many different reasons to oppose UHC of any sort.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Jeff will whistle another tune, we can be sure.

[mikepictor.livejournal.com]

You've got no reasonable basis to say so until people can see more about how it's implemented.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Let's put it this way - the problem with the Massachusetts system definitely isn't that it doesn't go far enough.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

You're right for once. The problem with the Massachusetts system is that it's the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of Vermont's. Vermont's plan is socialist. The Romney/Obama plan is corporatist/fascist.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Those two words are interchangeable.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

And that's one of the biggest lies ever told.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

What is, exactly?

[madscience.livejournal.com]

The notion that the word "socialism" is interchangeable with the words "fascism" and "corporatism". Or even "communism", for that matter. It's Cold War linguistic propaganda.

Or were you saying that "fascism" and "corporatism" are interchangeable? Because history and I would agree with that.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, I am, but there's no fundamental difference between socialism and fascism. They go hand in hand. To say that the Massachusetts plan, which offers more choice, is more fascist simply doesn't add up.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

"there's no fundamental difference between socialism and fascism"

You didn't just drink the kool-aid; you drowned in it.

[404.livejournal.com]

Congrats to Vermont, I wait to see how it goes in the future, and see if their model can be extrapolated out to the whole country, or if it is a hot mess. We shall see.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

You're not suppose to be congratulating them. That's not conservative doctrine. You need to rage about how Vermont is going to become a pit of despair.

[404.livejournal.com]

Guess I am just a maverick.

[jamie-miller.livejournal.com]

Animal shelter? NPR? What are you, some kind of hippie?

:)

[madscience.livejournal.com]

Yeah! I wish Obama had copied Peter Shumlin's plan instead of Mitt fucking Romney's.