Virginia is Lovers

Texas is for Techbros

"Nihilists? Fuck me. Say you want about the tenets of nation socialist Dude but at least it's an ethos"

This entire idea is original sin from Andrew Wakefield. There's like no other reason MMR is the prime suspect than the fact he was looking to sell a competition vaccine.

It's the fact anyone is having these discussions at all, doctors or not. All we've done is waste millions upon millions of many hours of effort time and stress based on a lie that has been politically hijacked.

What? That doesn't answer the question. You still need insurance for a DCP, it doesn't cover everything medical. What's a triple bypass cost?

I see your trick. You use the word "gains" like its an accepted definition and use it negatively and dishonestly make it seem like somebody is getting something they don't deserve when that's just the payment from the system as designed. See one of the reasons this isnt a ponzi is that there are no investors, the investors is everybody and the beneficiaries are anybody.

Social Security is universal, everybody pays, everybody gets. Unless population growth drops to zero the system will keep chugging along until we die. The only thing that will change is how much it pays out (absolute worst case it pays out 78% of benefits in 3037 until we're all dead)

Also why are we talking about the trust fund instead of the general fund? The trust fund *is made from the income on the general fund*. Also legally SS is restricted in what it can do with the money, pretty sure it's only permitted to buy Treasury Bonds.

This has been known, you know it's not *exactly* the same as 1935, Reagan amended it in the 80s and it was done in the 60's as well. This isn't tablets passed down from god, it's just laws.

These talking points tell me that we really shouldn't even be having this conversation since you seem to lack the fundamental knowledge of how the very system you have such strong feelings about being a criminal enterprise even works.

I understand when you heard this on Rogan it was really compelling but it's not true.

Ok so let's say I believe you, how do we scale that up to the entire nation sustainably.

What's your alternative

That just confirms you don't know what that is. It has a negative connotation and you want to tie it to SS. Nothing beyond that.

Compared to what? Do we all remember pre 2010 healthcare? ACA is far from perfect but how as it better before the ACA? Do we want to give up maximum-out-of-pocket rules and pre-existing condition rules? Things that are so popular that Trump himself takes credit for them.

And what was the rate of change pre-ACA?

And that is the work of Republicans who have since whittled the individual mandate to nothing. The penalty in that case was not high enough. It also had it's public option stripped before passage which neutered much of it's cost control measures.

But I am not here to defend the ACA as the best option for healthcare. I would much prefer a Bismarck style or single-payer system. The question is what is your alternatives?

When someone says this you can effectively disregard all their political opinions for obvious reasons. They are just dopamine farming. Do you feel better now that you've virtue signaled your useless nihilism? Let the adults handle politics.

In order for it to be a ponzi/pyramid scheme there has to be someone skimming the profits from everyone, where is that happening? Overhead costs for SS are 0.5%

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ssa.gov%2Foact%2FSTATS...

"Money from one group goes to another" does not a pyramid scheme make. I don't think you know what those are.

That's called Social Security which is a form of forced savings.

Then you don't actually want it you just want to say it. The entire concept of insurance is to create a large enough risk pool to cover incidents.

We call those "laws". What if I *really want* to rob you, the law basically "forces" me not to. We call this system "society" and "civilization"

Again, we've tried this. For retirement it was pensions (which were killed off in the last 50 years) and 401K which has been pretty much an abject failure.

Then Social Security by all accounts is good. High effectiveness (elderly poverty reduced), high approval ratings and very, very low overhead costs. If anything SS is an example of how Universal social programs can be more effective than means tested ones.

Yup and that's how we get Trump who basically gets the nomination with like 42% of 20% of voters. Not a big amount!

There's a world where Republicans grow a spine, Nikki Haley is the candidate and she probably wins with like 55% of the vote in the general.

Sure but these issues are systemic to the nature of our system.

The US has very low rates in terms of preventative care as well as we have a huge shortage of Primary Care Physicians and there are no real mechanisms currently to affect that.

Universal systems have a method to deal with the fact that 80% of peoples health costs happen in the last 20% of their life and yes while it is something of a cold calculation at some point a determination has to be made the practice of Wellbeing Adjusted Life Years is pretty fair all things considered.

Of course back in 2010 that was hammered constantly over Fox and from every Republican to the American public as "death panels", "they want to kill grandma" so no public option or universal system for us. So instead of a standardized system for determining the amount of care it's left to the whims of Aetna and UHC.

Same anecdote here. My grandfather insisted on going to his VA doctors, he made sure they did his hip replacement (which he got at like 81 and was walking until he was 94)

My father who is a Vietnam vet didn't go to the VA for most of his life since he had a union insurance plan but after retirement he started going and they helped him out quite a bit. They actually sat him in front of a counselor and said "oh yeah you totally have some PTSD still" and he's gotten help there.

That's an issue I always bring up, primary voter participation for both parties is pretty much always under 30% for some states under 15%. We kvetch about a lack of choices but fail to show up when there are choices.

Nearly 4-In-5 Registered Voters Failed To Cast a Ballot in 2024 Primaries, While Highest Turnout Seen in Vote at Home States