Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
The healthcare portion of the debate -- which is the only part I've watched so far besides the lol pandering racism segment -- was pretty bad.
Not a single candidate up there understood what the fuck they were talking about.
You had the moderates talking about how people should be able to "keep their insurance if they like it" instead of being forced onto Medicare For All, but they couldn't articulate WHY people would want to keep their insurance if Medicare For All would allow them to keep their doctors and still get covered.
You had the mainstream leftists talking about a public option, allowing people to choose between utilizing Medicare For All or going with private insurance, but again they failed to explain WHY anyone would choose the private insurance option over the free Medicare option which their tax dollars already funded.
You had the extreme leftists talking about Medicare For All saving the country so much money overall, yet the savings figures they quoted were "$23 billion, which insurance companies profited". Umm... the US healthcare expenditures in 2017 were $3.5 trillion. Taking that $23 billion profit away from insurance companies would be a whopping 0.6% savings in cost. But it wouldn't even be a savings, because utilization of healthcare would skyrocket once everything became "free" , thus sending overall costs through the roof. They couldn't explain where these savings would come from, nor could they fully explain where the funding would come from.
Aside from some lip service about pharmaceuticals, there wasn't any real attempt to address the biggest healthcare crisis in the US -- cost.
The moderates completely blew it by failing to point out that Medicare For All would cause horrible wait times to see doctors and get procedures done, as is the case in other countries with socialized medicine. It would be even worse here, because the US already has a doctor shortage. Instead, they just blathered on about "people want to keep their insurance", not understanding that it's not INSURANCE people want to keep, but rather a system which doesn't get crushed by overutilization and extreme taxpayer burden.
Warren played fast and loose with the term "cost", claiming that it would "cost" middle class families less overall under Medicare For All, but sneakily qualified it by saying that she was including "the end of denied procedures and denied prescirptions" as far as the supposed "savings". So what she was really saying was that, with the tax increase, cost for most middle class families would go UP, but a few people who would have otherwise been denied certain procedures might get accepted now. What a bunch of bullshit double-talk. And no one was aware enough to call her on it.
Biden laughably failed to defend attacks on Obamacare -- basically what he supports as his health care plan -- when his opponents were claiming that his insurance plan "leaves 10 million Americans not covered". What? Obamacare guarantees acceptance regardless of preexisting conditions, and also subsidizes healthcare (to the point of premiums being free) for low and lower-middle class Americans. So yes, his plan does cover everyone who puts out the most minimal effort to sign up. Sleepy Joe didn't articulate this and just uttered 1-liners like a dope.
At the same time, his opponents didn't attack the ACTUAL flaws of Obamacare, namely the sky-high rise in premiums since it was implemented, and the low acceptance rate by doctors, especially well-rated ones.
There was also so much dick sucking of Obama during that segment, because it was said that the candidates at the earlier debates were too derisive of Obama's plans, in attempt to criticize Biden, and that rubbed some Democratic voters the wrong way.
Mayor Pete had little of substance to say in this one, as per usual.
What a fucking fail. It's not just that I disagree with these healthcare approaches. It's that none of the candidates even understand what problems they're tackling.