I currently think Biden is the front runner and having a woman of color as a running mate would bolster him immensely. I just can't see the party moving all the way left and win this time even with Trump being his own worst enemy, but there is a lot of time between now and election day and there will be wild swings. I do not think Trump is a lock in any way despite what some may want you to think.
Jess, Warren said in so many words that she was for open borders if you read between the lines. She had to be squelched a lot or talking over her time. It is the Medicare for all thing which is concerning to some that I viewed and again, I watched the liberal perspective.
The questions about Medicare for all were purposely misleading and antagonistic. Which both warren and sanders tried to call them out on but it is what it is...
Here’s the thing - yes taxes will go up on the middle class. But the amount of money they will be spending is LESS. I don’t know why it matters if it’s a tax or a payment to a private company.. no matter where the money goes my only concern is that it’s less of my money and either the same or better care.
My mom is on Medicare and she has secondary private insurance - Medicare costs her $130/month, her secondary insurance $250/month and she still has to pay $800 every 90 days for just one of her medications. That’s insane. It’s bleeding her dry. Yet when you try to talk to her about Medicare for all and even sit with her and run the numbers and show her how much she’d save she isn’t on board or doesn’t get it. I’m not sure what drives that... and for any improvement in this mess of a system we have we need to figure that out.
I suspect it’s fear of the unknown. Change is scary. Even if it’s good. There’s a psychological term for this that I’m entirely blanking on right now... but we need to figure out how to overcome that. I am 100% supportive of Medicare for all, but I can see the argument in an incremental transition that at first just opens a public option so people can see for themselves how much money they’d save and it would no longer be an unknown. I don’t think the issue is choice - we want to choose our medical providers but not too many of us care what name our hmo is so long as our needs are getting met and we can see the doctors we want.
But I do have concerns that trying to do it incrementally will get in the way of the ultimate goal of making healthcare affordable - if everyone’s not on the government plan the governments ability to negotiate prices is limited (how severely limited depends on how many choose it). At that point doctors and hospitals can just choose not to participate with the government insurance and the whole thing falls apart - I suspect the people pushing for this “moderate” approach who are getting all these big donations from pharmaceutical and insurance companies are banking on that.
All I heard her say - and again I will repeat I had technical difficulties so I could have missed something or a lot of things - is that we need border security but we also have to decriminalize (it only recently became criminalized). I understand the reasons for both. I understand the ideological impetus behind both.
For someone who truly believes health care is a right denying said health care to anyone for any reason is a moral issue.