Why Sanders' Medicare for All approach is seen as a threat. A public option is a better way forward.

[Politicub]

This is my story. It's not unlike millions of other people out there.

Job Lock, staying at a company because of insurance benefits, made me miserable and scared. The ACA fixed that. Bernie comes across as a threat to a better life that the ACA brings.

What I would like to say to Sanders is bring more people into the system as quickly as your can; Don't break what's working for millions of us.

I stayed on a great career path for more than twenty years, and had an enviable job. Yet I was so unhappy being there. I would come home drained and, over time, became more and more depressed and anxious.

Knowing that I would put me and my disabled husband at risk by not having insurance, I stayed at my job. That's until the breakdown happened. I found myself curled up on the floor and sobbing every day for more than two weeks. I couldn't do it anymore. I was broken.

The ACA was there to catch me, though. I was able to get a plan through the exchange and branch out on my own business using what I had learned. That was three years ago, and I've bought my insurance through the exchange ever since. Using your words, I have free agency.

More than 20 million Americans have insurance through the ACA. We only have 8 percent of the population to go for full insurance.

That why people like Bernie, who advocate a Medicare-for-all-or-bust approach bring back feelings of anxiety and dread. Don't get me wrong: I'm for universal, single-payer coverage. I disagree with Bernie, though, on how to get there. A public option is a bridge to get there since it builds off the ACA as a platform. The Medicaid portion needs fixing. And scaring people about losing health insurance through their job is a recipe for disaster. Some people like their job-provided coverage. It didn't work for me, though.

I want a system that covers everyone. It can be patchwork if need be, and can grow over time. And if it changes to Medicare for all one day, that's fantastic.

Oh, and my disabled husband finally won his disability case. He has Medicare now. And while I drool over the options in the guide to his open enrollment period, my benefits have been superior at times. My specialist co-pay is less, and the drug formulary is larger than his Medicare Advantage provider. He has a premium that comes off his disability income each month.

Sanders' plan is not Medicare. His approach is something else entirely; Sanders is only keeping the name.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. Because he calls for the elimination of the Health Insurance Industry.....

who are the villians here . They have been the ruin of many people with Medical Bankruptcies deciding who and what they will cover.

[Politicub]

3. I would submit that a greater proportion of medical bankruptcies happen with uninsured people

as opposed to people who are covered by the ACA.

If someone is below 400 percent poverty level (which I think is about $60k for a family of two), the subsidies from the government for a silver plan are generous. Every marketplace plan has an annual out-of-pocket limit.

The premiums above the 400 percent are too high. That needs to be fixed.

But that's a tweak to the existing law. Sanders wants to rip-and-replace with a new law.

The rip-and-replace approach is seductive. Who wouldn't want a system where you don't pay premiums and get care for no additional out of pocket? I would love that. But it's going to take a long time to get there.

[TCJ70]

2. It sounds like a M4A/single-player system would have helped you out...

...in that you wouldn’t have felt tied to your job. I’m glad you’re in a decent place now. A public option is absolutely not an extension of the ACA. The ACA specifically keeps private insurance in power.

I think we’ll eventually have the same system the rest of the world does. I think Sanders also understands that it will take time. But you don’t make progress by asking for the compromise. You ask for the world and compromise from there.

[Politicub]

4. A public option is not in the exhange now. It can be.

It will take an amendment to the ACA law. That's it.

I'm not going to keep typing the same thing: Yes, Medicare for All would have been fantastic in my situation. Woo hoo! Bring it on. Boo Hiss at the insurance industry. Lock it in stocks and lob rotten tomatoes and putrid bananas at it.

But MCA wasn't there, was it? The ACA was. It is there for many TODAY. It can be there for more people more quickly than MCA.

Fix the law. Use it to get to MCA if you want. But, don't freak people out with upending the entire system. That will not go anywhere.

[marylandblue]

10. Sanders is not known for his ability to compromise and neither are Republicans

So he's basically wants to force this down the throats of Democrats. All to do a system that is unrealistic from the beginning. There are in fact tried and true models from elsewhere in the world. Sanders plan is not one of them. Other systems have copays and don't cover all the things Sanders plan does.

I want the German model. It's mixed public/private. It works fine, it's one of the best in the world. Not pie in the sky, wasier to implement and no forcing anybody off their current insurance whether they like it or not.

[shanny]

5. Then threaten with it.

Why start negotiating with what we are prepared to accept?

[Politicub]

7. Because when you threaten, you lose. It puts you in a spot of weakness for negotiation.

Politics is the art of the possible. Making the possible real means attracting people to your position because they want to be there. It isn't threatening them. That makes them closed off to anything you are saying.

[shanny]

12. So if I want something in politics, I should ask for that exact thing?

And then sit back while the other side of the aisle (and some on my side, no doubt) whittles it down from there? Or should I ask for more than I'm likely to get, and settle for a reasonable compromise?

Politics 101.

FDR understood in the 30s that if the vast majority of Americans didn't have a stake in our capitalist system that system would collapse into fascism or communism. He had obvious examples of both in current events and recent history. So he used the bully pulpit to threaten the power structure into giving up enough to preserve the system. It was awful...oh, wait.

[marylandblue]

11. If you start with a non-starter, they laugh at you.

Try going to a car dealership and demanding the most expensive model for free, then negotiating from there.

[shanny]

13. ah, reductio ad absurdum

"In formal logic, the reductio ad absurdum is actually a legitimate argument, but it is often applied fallaciously. The fallacy follows the idea that if the premises of someone's argument are taken as true, then it necessarily will lead to absurd conclusions."

Thanks for the opportunity to teach.

[marylandblue]

14. Oh brother, it's called exagerated for effect and humor

Where the assumption is that the listener is in on the joke. But rather than address the point, you want to lecture about fallacies.

This won't fly with many Democrats. It isn't even flying on DU, and we are probably more progressive that the average Democrat.

It didn't fly in Vermont and California.

We aren't even negotiating here. You are telling the rest of us that this the only way (false), that all other Western countries do the same thing (also false), and that we should want to give up our private insurance(thanks for sandersplaining to me).

[shanny]

16. 1. Never say never.

Didn't fly in VT--imo--because of economies of scale. Didn't fly in CA because of entrenched opposition. Universal health care works in every other advanced nation so, yeah, we should try to come up with a way to get there--by negotiating, y'know? Unless you are content to be Exceptional(ly dsyfunctional). I'm not.

2. I ain't telling you shit.

3. I ain't negotiating.

4. I ain't Sanderspaining anything.

5. "won't even fly on DU and we are probably more progressive...." I doubt it. Labels aside, I think the average DUer is LESS progressive than the population and if the Party follows suit, we are doomed.

I guess we'll see, won't we?

[marylandblue]

18. If you are not telling me shit, what exactly are you telling me in your posts?

Because they sure look you are telling me something.

"Didn't fly in CA because of entrenched opposition."
Ok, thank you for making my case. Consider me a member of the entrenched opposition team, and on board with Beto's plan or something similar, which is in fact Universal Healthcare, and unlike Sanders plan, resembles something that works in other countries.

You are saying yours is a negotiating position, but you aren't negotiating and if we go with some other idea, the party is doomed. Sorry, you can't have it both ways.

[Politicub]

15. You must be fun at parties.

"Uhm, did you know you are demonstrating ipso-facto-ad-hominem-no true scotsman-Oxford-deflection technique? Begone from my presence!"

[shanny]

17. I am, thanks...and you too!

[area51]

6. You bring up an interesting point;

Here's PNHP's take on why a public option won't work.

[Politicub]

8. That site is all conjecture and no evidence

And biased because it's a group dedicated to MCA.

The reality is, we don't know how a public option will be structured because it doesn't exist today. It will be a new construction.

It can be structured any way we want by amending the ACA once dems regain power. If we don't regain power, then nothing will happen: No MCA, no public option, no anything.

[brer cat]

9. Thank you.

Throwing out the ACA while reaching for the stars is a recipe for losing. Also it cannot be said enough: what Bernie is proposing is NOT Medicare. Of course it would be wonderful, but it isn't going to be accepted in one bite by the voters or by Congress.