What is the biggest issue of the election and what is the best action?

[MorkandMindy]

I think the biggest issue has to be healthcare. It consumes 18% of GDP, and that is more than all of the taxes collected, 17% of GDP, and is 6 times the defense budget and it is still rising.

What is the best action?

Looking around the World the US has the most expensive healthcare system per person, even more than Switzerland's, and ours certainly isn't the best. We have to do something about the total cost.

Simply shifting the cost from employees to employers is not going to solve it, a big force behind moving the car factories out of the US was the health insurance costs paid by the car makers.

 

[MorkandMindy]

The problem is likely to snowball as medical costs make more businesses uncompetitive the cost will be carried by a decreasing number of businesses.

So what is the answer? It's the one that is already in use throughout the land, improve efficiency.

Medical school training is too long and too expensive. A PA - physician assistant or NP - nurse practitioner with a superb medical diagnosis program - Watson - is more capable than pretty much any physician at diagnosis, and robotic surgery is getting pretty good too.

Due to the high cost of care many of us have been seen by a PA or NP and I was unaware my primary career was an NP but was impressed that she actually had time to ask more questions because the doctor I had before had very little time.

 

[Albion]

It may turn out to be the dangers of having one political party attempt to overthrow the government simply because it lost an election. And how such important matters as healthcare reform (and trade agreements and immigration reform and so much more) are at a standstill in the House, thanks to the efforts to find something that can be claimed as a reason for impeachment.

I would not have thought this a little while ago, even mere weeks ago, but there are signs that this has become a big deal with a lot of independent voters, the people who will decide the next election.

 

[ananda]

The biggest issue IMO is all the money printing aka "qualitative easing", creating false weights & measures. Anything else built upon that monetary system is bound to be deceptive & faulty, but neither the left nor the right cares to address it. It's like they rather play around with legerdemain by drawing our attention to all the symptoms, instead of their cause.

 

[stevil]

It may turn out to be the dangers of having one political party attempt to overthrow the government simply because it lost an election.

No-one is trying to overthrow a government. If Trump is impeached AND removed then Pence becomes president and Republicans continue to govern.

The Russian investigation was started by the intelligence agencies, not the Democrats. The special council was put in place by a Republican not the Democrats.

And how such important matters as healthcare reform (and trade agreements and immigration reform and so much more) are at a standstill in the House, thanks to the efforts to find something that can be claimed as a reason for impeachment.

The house has put forth hundreds of bills, they get killed by the self proclaimed "grim reaper" Mitch McConnel and don't make it to a Senate vote.

I would not have thought this a little while ago, even mere weeks ago, but there are signs that this has become a big deal with a lot of independent voters, the people who will decide the next election.

Your thinking isn't very clear. You don't seem to be inline with reality.

 

[Albion]

No-one is trying to overthrow a government. If Trump is impeached AND removed then Pence becomes president and Republicans continue to govern.

You are at liberty to offer your own guess about what will be the big issue in the upcoming election, just as I gave mine.

 

[wing2000]

The biggest issue is the loss of facts and truth.

 

[straykat]

As Bill Clinton and James Carville once said:

"It's the economy, stupid."

I miss the days when Democrats knew that. Truly. I voted for Obama twice and Hillary last time. Probably will never vote for a Democrat again.

 

[AvisG]

This election will not be about issues. This election will be about a fundamental vision of what America should be. We are in an ideological civil war. People are not going to be voting on the basis of either party's positions on specific issues.

 

[Aryeh Jay]

Apparently flushing the toilet too much is also important.

Trump claims Americans have to flush the toilet ’10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once’

If Trump or Rudy are flushing 10-15 times, they need to shred the documents better.

 

[MorkandMindy]

This election will not be about issues. This election will be about a fundamental vision of what America should be. We are in an ideological civil war. People are not going to be voting on the basis of either party's positions on specific issues.

It should be possible to resolve even ideological issues starting from human nature. The society should suit the humans that are in it, taking into account the essentials for mental welfare, but the top elite want the exact opposite, to neutralize the country such as through civil war and then to be able to asset strip the country of it's mineral wealth, so it is likely to be a repeat of a few previous elections with one side getting it half right and the media driving the other side to believe they have a monopoly on the truth while getting it completely wrong. In truth v media it tends at present to come out about equal numbers on each side.

In 1981 it was the red side that got it completely wrong, Ronnie Reagan backed 100% by the media brought us all Neoliberalism. Anyone the media adores is guaranteed to be wrong.

 

[GodLovesCats]

It may turn out to be the dangers of having one political party attempt to overthrow the government simply because it lost an election. And how such important matters as healthcare reform (and trade agreements and immigration reform and so much more) are at a standstill in the House, thanks to the efforts to find something that can be claimed as a reason for impeachment.

Impeachment proceedings have no effect on the House committees responsible for writing up health care bills. Go back to 2017 and see who was putting them on the floor. I am sure they weren't the Judiciary or Intelligence Committees.

I would not have thought this a little while ago, even mere weeks ago, but there are signs that this has become a big deal with a lot of independent voters, the people who will decide the next election.

Health care is by far the most important issue the next President will have to tackle. Everyone needs it. A lot of independent voters will have different ideas on how to solve the problem, but they agree the ACA is not good enough as it is now.

 

[GodLovesCats]

I challenge anyone who thinks improving health care is less important than lowering taxes for rich people who can pay them, preventing legal immigrations from Mexico, creating environment-damaging jobs, and preventing people who change genders from being who they are to explain why.

 

[MorkandMindy]

I challenge anyone who thinks improving health care is less important than lowering taxes for rich people who can pay them, preventing legal immigration from Mexico, creating environment-damaging jobs, and preventing people who change genders from being who they are to explain why.

Very true.

Improving efficiency and quality in the medical system are all higher priorities than pretty much anything else.

Elizabeth Warren's idea of just pouring a lot more money into what is already the most expensive healthcare system in the World and not one of the best, is just going to lead to more over-manning and more corruption, we don't do that with any other service, Walmart is pretty good and it runs on a shoe string, minimal staff levels sure kept us on the ball and focused.

 

[GodLovesCats]

Walmart reportedly keeps prices down by not offering health insurance to its employees. They were mad, of course. But we addressed the issue of people losing health insurance they quit in my health care topic.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Walmart reportedly keeps prices down by not offering health insurance to its employees. They were mad, of course. But we addressed the issue of people losing health insurance they quit in my health care topic.

Walmart offers a health care plan with much lower premiums than ACA Bronze for my age, but it covers nothing of the first 3,200 in costs so at my age it is still cheaper than any of the 'Affordable' care act plans, but then it cuts off at 100,000 so if you are planning on having a huge car crash then take the ACA.

 

[MorkandMindy]

I worked 3.5 years at Walmart and went through the first stage when the base pay was 9.00 per hour, and it was a pretty good busy but fairly average place.

The next year pay was increased to 10.00 per hour and staffing level cut 10% to make up for it, and the pace of work got very busy but still possible, and people commented on how quickly the day goes when you are busy and they were right.

The next year the base pay went up to 11.00 and staffing went down another 10% and it became impossible to get everything done. For me on register the worst part was when shelf prices hadn't been updated and I had to verify them, the customer was usually right.

This allowed me to experience the rate of work and amount of pressure people were happiest at, and it was the staffing level we had when on the 10.00 per hour pay rate.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Things are organized very inefficiently here, my yearly check in England took 20 minutes of nurse time to do a bunch of tests including electrocardiogram and then 4 minutes of doctor time to evaluate options and check the dosage of my medication was achieving the required result and side effects were not bad.

Here is was 25 min with the nurse checking boxes on a form, and then 25 min with the doctor looking over the form and checking more boxes, and then a form to take to some laboratory, no ECG, so less got done for a lot more doctor time.

But the big time waster has to be the large number of hospital administrators needed to allocate costs between all the different payers. At a nearby hospital they have more billing administrators than beds.

And even they can't be sure who will pay for what, if a provider refused to pay after the third request then it gets passed on to the patient.

No, they can't be sure. Government administrators produce huge long documents that are a brilliant example of total meaninglessness.

The system needs to be simplified and cost controls are also needed. Even as poor as I am I could pay for most things if the costs weren't so crazy high

 

[GodLovesCats]

How much time you spend in a doctor's office does not affect the amount of money insurance companies, the government, or yourself pay for the appointment. You can choose another hospital or clinic and if you had Medicare, it would cost the same.

 

[Yttrium]

I'm not really issues driven this time around. I don't really have too many problems with Trump on the political issues. I used to be concerned about the deficit, but both parties seem determined to crank up the deficit big time these days.

My only real issue right now is getting Trump out of office.