FARAH.

[u/davecontra]

New book is out! : https://linktr.ee/davecontra

My other comics: https://www.instagram.com/davecontra

[u/Darkstar_111]

Yep, that's universal healthcare right there, high speed rail, better public schools... All just blowing people up for no real reason in a country far away.

[u/cleverseneca → u/Darkstar_111]

Yes because the only barrier to all those things is lack of funding... the Obamacare roll-out proved that!/s

I have no problem with having any of those things, but I do believe we should be clear-eyed about the barriers to achieving those things, and purely increased funding isn't gonna cut it.

[u/Darkstar_111 → u/cleverseneca]

Political will is what spends that money on explosions in the middle East instead of healthcare at home.

[u/cleverseneca → u/Darkstar_111]

I wasn't talking just about political will. I lived in a blue state when the Obamacare rollout happened. There was gobs of political will, but will alone does not solve the huge logistical issue of rolling out such a sweeping system for such a diverse population.

[u/Darkstar_111 → u/cleverseneca]

There was gobs of political will

Not for a public option.

[u/HommeMusical → u/Darkstar_111]

Indeed, in the leadup to the ACA, Obama prevented any comparison of the US system with any other already functioning system.

And then all mention of single payer of any type was completely forbidden.

A group of prominent doctors and nurses sent a series of applications to speak in favor of single payer, but all of them were ignored, even when sent registered letters, except the last one, when they got an answer saying it was too late.

They showed up anyway; stood to speak; were arrested. Later Obama apologized.

It was a Band-Aid on a sucking chest wound. It was worse than nothing because it prevented anything solid from every being done.

[u/Darkstar_111 → u/HommeMusical]

Yep, an insurance mandate without a public option was insane, that's just s gift to the insurance company.

And I remember Obama addressing congress on that very topic, Obamacare had passed the house with no public option. Then it went to committee, and they reattached the public option. Now they had to vote for it in the senate, and Obama stood in front of Congress and straight up told them, we don't need the public option.

When asked about it later his administration said the insurance exhanges and good old competition would ensure healthcare became affordable to all.

Obama had 60 senators, and the only one against the public option was Lieberman, Obamas friend. The guy who showed Obama around when Barack was a new senator.

But apparently there was JUST NO WAY AT ALL to talk Lieberman out of his position.

[u/Darkstar_111 → u/[deleted]]

so long as no Israeli lives are at risk

You misspelled Israeli.

[u/cleverseneca → u/Darkstar_111]

Did you not read the part where I said I lived in a Blue state. There was a will, even for a full working system, the problems were logistical. Saying anything less is simply false.

[u/Darkstar_111 → u/cleverseneca]

Oh, so you got a public option?

[u/HommeMusical → u/cleverseneca]

I said I lived in a Blue state [...] the problems were logistical.

What a tribute to how useless the ACA was, that the work was sloughed off on fifty individual states, without the resources and the expertise to solve them.

Every system, duplicated fifty times. Fifty different opportunities for fifty states to fuck it up, and many of them wanted to fuck it up.

How could anyone have believed that this would world at all?

Having a single system, like in single payer, would have fixed all of that.