At 7/7/19 09:15 PM, NeonSpider wrote:
At 7/7/19 12:36 PM, EdyKel wrote:
So, if you were poor, lived in a deep red state, controlled by Republicans, you could argue that this was a tax on the poor.
But this is exactly, precisely, 100% what the problem is. So if you already know this then why would you vote to make things worse for huge swaths of the American people who are already the poorest and with little opportunity to improve that situation? How is this different from blaming the poor for being poor when in reality the vast majority of poor never had much to begin with, including opportunities to get out of poverty?
No. To understand this fully, you would have to go back to the 90's, where you had Republicans designing the foundation that would be known as the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare). At that point of time, health care costs were spiraling out of control, putting pressure on Republicans to find a solution. They eventually scrapped doing anything about it, while costs continue to spiral out of control - and after 9-11 they could just ignore the problem for a while. But the public was getting angry over the constantly out of control cost of health in thios country - not to mention tired of the wars.
By the time Democrats retook both chambers of congress, and controlled the White House, there were hundreds of thousand of people filing for bankruptcy every year due to medical costs, easily reaching near or over a hundred thousand dollars. Part of the problem was that people were being dropped by their health insurance, or weren't able to get it. Universal health care, which was floated by some Democrats, didn't take off, because no one knew how to pay for it (just like medicare for for all) which didn't lead to hire taxes for everyone. So they turned to a system that was implemented by a Republican Governor in his state, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, which based on the original ideas of the Republican health plan of the 90's.
But from the get go, Republican were opposed to it, even though they added ideas to the Democrat health plan, and instead platformed on fear mongering that this plan would bankrupt the country, people would die from it because of supposed death panels because of government control over health care, and it would lead to more taxes, and that is what led to the rise of the tea party. The idea of the ACA was to expand medicare to more people, and to stabilize the rise in insurance premiums and to keep people from being dropped by their insures and being denied coverage due to a preexisting condition.
To placate the Insurance companies to accept people with preexisting conditions, and not to drop those who developed expensive medical conditions, Democrats introduced the mandate, with the idea that the more healthy people in the pool (which might also lead to preventative measures to avoid more serious condition and expense for them) will offset the loss for those with more serious and expensive conditions, while also stabilizing insurance premiums. And I already mentioned the subsidies, and medicaid expansion, to help those who could afford insurance.
While the ACA did stabilize the insurance price, and helped a lot people, it was far from a perfect plan, but it was the only plan that had a chance. Republicans, went out of their way to make it worse, while not offering anything that would be practical, or better, to deal with the issues that the ACA tried to address. When they got full control of the government, with a Republican president, they got rid of the mandate, and tried to repeal the ACA. Though, before Trump got into office, they had no plan to replace it, after voting to repeal it several time with token votes. And by the time they did come up with their own plan to replace it (a plan designed in the backroom by a handful of prominent Republicans, without floor debate on it), it was worse, offering everything from vouchers, to small tax rebates, and kicking millions of poor off medicare, which led it to and it failed to pass - it was terrible and mean.
So, having all this in mind, I don't get your argument at all. You either are ignorant of past and current events and problems in our health system, or you are being one of those ideological political loyalists who blindly accepts whatever the loudest voice says from it and are and just using the poor to pad your argument with sympathy (while quietly laughing, and hoping someone accepts your silly argument). I mean, blaming a mandate, when there were government subsidies that helped the poor, and even middle class, and plans that allowed more poor to sign up for the government/State funded medicaid, while excusing State Republicans who denied some of this stuff that would have addressed your concerns over the poor, so you can argue how unfair paying $180 fine for those who didn't sign up for health insurance, even though they would be a huge leach on taxpayers when they got injured or sick by doing something they could have avoided, or voted for a politicians who would have opened those options for them rather than blinding voting for politicians who denied them that.
If you will respond with "well maybe they should have voted Democrat", they do tend to, if they can get to the polling places. See voter suppression tactics. They tend to overwhelmingly be targeted at the poor. This ensures things have little chance for improvement.
I don't care who they vote for, as long as they are informed, and that the dominate state party doesn't try to disfranchise voters in some way to give their part a better chance at winning seats, or retaining them. I also respect people who have a reason for voting for something, evenifit'sselfish, as long as it not based on superficial and stereotypical reasons, or misinformation, even I if detest the candidate they are voting for - or if they are strictly voting for them out of blind party (or political ideological) loyalty.
And if your answer is "they should move", you've obviously never been poor. Moving is expensive, and the blue states tend to be located quite a ways from most red states. And most people don't want to be separated from their families, including extended families, which odds are they can't all just up and move to a more favorable state. People are born into poverty, consistently kept down, prevented opportunities, generally disenfranchised, and with little or no mobility. And this describes the vast majority of poor in America. You would essentially penalize someone because they were born.
Never crossed my mind.