The first sentence and first part of second are problematic, but I still think it’s a very problematic use of context on Axios (not our friends).
Yeah, I don’t know if she was throwing a bone to religious people, but the intent of her overall message can get lost because of the first sentence.
Because Biden seems weak af, has been collapsing since the second he declared, and the #2 and #3 candidates are Warren and Sanders?
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Re: Warren’s “but will their taxes go up!!!gotcha???” answer. I think she handled it pretty well when Chris Matthews tried it with her after the first debate. It was a misleading question and any answer that included “yes, but…” was going to be twisted not only by FOX but by every MSM outlet so she decided not to play the game.
It seems the other “news” people are going to follow in Matthews’s footsteps, all in a race to be the first to get her to say “yes, but…” But it’s troubling to see other candidates do the same thing to score cheap points when they know it’s a terribly misleading question.
I’m not ecstatic about her answer, but that’s mainly because there is no great answer. Either you refuse to play along and they say you’re dodging the question, or you try to give an honest answer and the only thing voters hear for the next year–from FOX, the GOP, and apparently the other Dem candidates–is “Lizzo wants to raise taxes on the middle class!”
I think I’d like her to just get exasperated one time and blast the next “journalist” who latches on like a pit bull trying to get her to say yes. Just say “That’s a bullshit question and you know it. When you feel like being a real journalist, ask me if total costs will go up or down for middle-class Americans. Until then, keep collecting your Koch paycheck and kiss my minimally Native-American ass.”
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That answer would lock up the primary and probably the general election. I sincerely wish she would.
Here’s another angle
Journo: Under your healthcare plan, will taxes go up for middle-class Americans?
Lizzo: Thank your for the question about whether total costs will go up or down. Under my healtcare plan, total costs will go down for middle-class.
Journo: No, the question was about taxes, will their taxes go up or down?
Lizzo: Thanks for the follow up. Yes, I’m saying total costs will go down for middle-class Americans
Journo: No, taaaaaxes
Lizzo: Yes, total costs will go down. That’s great, isn’t it?
Yes, I mean that’s the message. And if she did that, the question would stop being asked.
The outcome for most people (especially those with kids) is that their out of pocket costs will go way down (and their premium might be somewhat comparable to what they have deducted from their paycheck by their employer with the matching that will go on inside companies), and they will have paid less than what they would have by the end of the year for medical costs.
This will not be the outcome for plenty of people, but when the media says ‘middle class’, they essentially mean mom, dad, 2 kids so it is in effect a ‘tax’ cut for the middle class as framed. They don’t mean a single healthy 30 year old who makes 60k a year and says eff health insurance. Yeah, that person is going to pay more, a lot more.
I think it’s a small mistake. The idea that she’s going to mitigate the coming GOP attacks on her being to the left of Lenin gunning for every dime of white America’s hard earned money by saying ‘costs’ instead of ‘taxes’ is uh well not correct. She is at her best when she transcends bullshit political framing not when falling prey to it. The correct answer is Bernie’s answer and that’s it. But again, it’s a small mistake, Bernie is pretty far back now to make the not an authentic enough progressive label stick, although you never know.
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I don’t think it’s about buying votes. I think it’s about wanting to get everyone on some kind of plan as soon as possible, be it the public plan or their employer/union plan, and that offering a choice is the best way to go about getting it done faster because of politics. So the union lady will choose to stay on her plan. Many many people will choose the government plan, especially when the goal is to design the government plan to be comparable or better than private plans at a lower cost.
I feel like there’s a lot of ignoring of the political realities going on in here, because we tend to assume everyone else thinks the way we do. I don’t mean that we assume people hold the same positions on issues, but that everyone analyzes and thinks about political issues the same way we do.
They don’t. The vast majority of people out there think about their daily lives, and they dislike change. The government coming in and telling them they have no choice but to comply is one of those “american spirit” things that gets folks up in arms, and I think it’s a big part of the reason so many people are wary of “M4A” (don’t get me started on the misuse of the terms M4A, single payer, universal health care, etc). This isn’t a republican talking point, because a LOT of democrats have this reaction as well.
Sorry, that went off track a bit, but your question presents it as a zero-sum game, and I don’t think it’s that simple.
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I like M4A, that should be the end state, but I would snap call stronger Obamacare with a public option in a heart beat, I’d beat Pete in the pot I’d call so fast.
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Q: Are taxes going to go up under M4A?
A: We’re going to spend a trillion dollars less per year on healthcare costs in this country and that’s the conservative estimate. If we reach the level of efficiency that Canada and European countries with single payer healthcare have we’ll save even more. Imagine what the American people can do if we put a trillion dollars extra in their pockets every year.
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Do you think Obamacare helped no one versus the status quo before Obamacare? A lot of people got health care that they wouldn’t otherwise have gotten. Obamacare, basically, is pretty bad (it was a Republican plan, after all).
Yeah, but what is that an argument for, failing to pass an excellent policy which was possibly impossible to pass politically because this is America?
But more specifically, in 2009, should they have just stuck to telling the right stories and put a bill on the floor that would have failed to get a majority of Democratic politicians to vote for it, or pass something bad (Obamacare) but tangibly less bad than the status quo?
This. We did get things like coverage for pre-existing condition yayadayada which were nice, but the insurance companies just jacked up rates double digits every year correspondingly.
Understand the rationale about death spiral, but lol at forcing people to buy insurance from our corrupt providers being the lynchpin of your plan. Stupid policy and absolutely idiotic politics.
We couldn’t even get the lol obvious policy of allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices in.
The reason we got Obamacare is absolutely not because the public preferred to take it slow w/ half measures. It’s because a huge chunk of Ds were sellouts to health insurance companies and other corporate interests in the healthcare industry.
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https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1184525279072526337?s=19
Interesting (but probably not very consequential).
The public preferred to not take it slow so much that the Tea Party won 60 seats the next election?
Yeah, when the best the you have to offer is forcing people to buy insurance at jacked up rates when they are already completely fucked financially during the biggest crisis since the Great Depression you are going to have a bad time.
Yeah, nobody paid jacked up rates until 4 years later though, they were thinking 4 years ahead? As it became even more jacked up in the last 3 years under this admin it paradoxically started polling better too?
The thesis, quite reasonable, is that the Democrats were corrupted by private insurance money just as much as the GOP, so they were never going to try making the political/messaging case for M4A, let alone actually pass it; I don’t necessarily disagree with that. The only thing I’m challenging is the read that the public would have supported M4A then even if it were a live option, given how much money and effort the various private insurance interests were willing to commit to defeat it.
Let me clear, I think this cycle it’s close, gun to my head I wouldn’t want to die on the single payer hill this cycle, but maybe my read is wrong, maybe the public is ready for it or Warren and Bernie will make the public ready with effective messaging.