General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThese two things have devastated our culture and we have descended into madness.
40 plus years of trickle down economics and 20 plus years of Supreme Court decisions that defied history and logic.
Trickle down economics destroys fairness in a culture and promotes corruption. Over the past 40 plus years we went from a single income family, one job, which could buy a house, car, raise a family, to a forced two income, two job family which has trouble paying the bills. I am not saying women should not work, just to be clear. I am just saying a family could get by on one income.
We went from free healthcare, 100% coverage to what we have now, which can only be described as NUTS! We handed all the money to the top and they past all the cost down to the people. The people at the top have acquired so much wealth, which has led to too much power. They have used this power to take control of our political system.
The past 20 plus years has seen the Republicans on the Supreme Court make decisions that have devastated our culture.
No Supreme Court should ever get involved, decide a presidential election. It's a lose , lose situation that will divide the people. People lost faith in the system.
Gutting the voting rights act. Their reasoning, racism is not what it used to be, which is true in a sense because of things like the voting rights act, which they gutted. It was stunning watching Republican Governors, with racist bills sitting on their desks waiting for the Court to gut the voting rights act
Citizens United will always be remembered for, corporations are people too. This decision wrecked , corrupted our election process with devastating results.
Guns, The Supreme Court has made decisions that have increased gun ownership, gun violence.
The American people are not innocent to this devastation. They are the ones who did the voting the past 40 plus years. Only the people can fix this mess.
bucolic_frolic
(43,182 posts)raging moderate
(4,305 posts)That was a ridiculous decision, to stop the counting of votes!
peacebuzzard
(5,175 posts)That presidency was his. It was a bumbled fiasco; and I still feel the deception. Looking back, there were so many wrong turns to what should have been a progression of the Democratic Party's agenda. I eventually found my way to this DU board because of that period of time.
bucolic_frolic
(43,182 posts)Gore needed FL Senator on the ticket, but he was an environmental type, and had to triangulate to appease the middle.
peacebuzzard
(5,175 posts)geez, for a moment I forgot about Nader.
Disaffected
(4,557 posts)why on earth Gore conceded after the decision to stop the count?
peacebuzzard
(5,175 posts)perhaps .....(so many things). It was a mess to say the least; and why does the popular vote mean nothing has added drama to every election.
Disaffected
(4,557 posts)Why hold a federal presidential election anyhow if the US constitution allows the states to choose their EC electors pretty much as they please (as I understand it)?
crud
(619 posts)was the day they rendered that decision. In the ruling they said that state legislators who grant the people power to elect presidential electors can take that power away at any time. That is why Trump and his henchmen thought they could legally get away with his insurrection.
Celerity
(43,415 posts)You said
raccoon
(31,111 posts)Had that great coverage.
But of course, the fact is that even in the 50s and 60s many people did not belong to such strong unions and didnt have such great coverage.
In my personal experience, having lived in a so-called right to work state all my life,It used to be far more common to get health insurance through your employer than what it is now. And of course the Premiums, co-pays, and Deductibles have gone up a lot over the years.
SouthernDem4ever
(6,617 posts)That hasn't been the case for decades now.
sinkingfeeling
(51,460 posts)insurance. 40 years ago, employees didn't pay anything towards premiums nor copays.
wnylib
(21,487 posts)we're fortunate enough tio work for a company that had that kind of coverage. Many did not offer it.
Backseat Driver
(4,393 posts)100% coverage - hospitalization OOP expenses at least 3 times were always < $10 for phone/TV room charges at discharge! Don't get all excited, the following decades we definitely paid the price, along with lots of others, I dare say, all of us, but our rich elite overlords, over and over many times, courtesy of the GOP churn strategies, Reagan's deregulation and trickle down, stagnating American wages, higher unemployment in national manufacturing, tech recessions, and non-appreciating areas of rust-belt housing, rapidly escalating costs of higher education and care of the elderly, a killing pandemic, some didn't and won't live long enough to "recover" those losses and/or lost years - Yeah, Cold War, World War, rekindled, and politicized communication/media...In the race against climate change, global greed for resources, the waste of recalled factory foods, better living through chemistry, gun violence in the citizenry, and costs of defense against tyranny, there's never a dull day, hey Dems?
Break out the popcorn gang - the 1/6 committee hearings are only a motion away!
wnylib
(21,487 posts)I know that in the 1970s, the company where I worked had health insurance coverage for all empoyees, paid by the company. No premiums to pay. Office visits and simple test, like bloodwork and X Rays were covered with no co pays. 80% of hospitalization and surgery costs were covered.
We had unlimited sick days based on employee honor system not to abuse it. 2 weeks vacation the first year, taken at once or split up, one week at a time or one or a few days at a time. Holiday time off, paid, for New Year's Eve and New Year's day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Most people took the day after Thanksgiving off as a vacation day.
It was not a union company, either. Many companies competed for employees then because unions had driven benefits up in general.
But, there were other, smaller employers and lower paying jobs that did not offer those kinds of benefits at all, especially not the health coverage.
I left that job when I got married and moved away for my husband's job. I worked part time and temporary for a while because his job required us to move a couple more times. When I got back into full time regular work, I never again had the kinds of benefits as at the job that I left when I got married.
Backseat Driver
(4,393 posts)Celerity
(43,415 posts)as the claim was a broad, universal statement)
Also, what about high deductibles? Even IF there were no premiums, those high deductibles were certainly a significant feature (and a massive co-pay in reality) of US employee insurance plans from the 1950's onwards through the 1970's, and led to massive out of pocket costs to people, and also led to people not seeking medical care.
No matter what, healthcare in the US was never free nor had 100% coverage. That is simply a false statement.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249880501_Restraining_the_Health_Care_Consumer_The_History_of_Deductibles_and_Co-payments_in_US_Health_Insurance
Abstract
Health insurance with high deductibles is an important feature of the Bush administrations health savings accounts initiative. A similar type of insurance, known as major medical, was the most common type of health coverage in the United States from the 1950s through the 1970s. This article traces the history of cost sharing in health insurance from its origins in insurers concerns about moral hazard to the heyday of major medical insurance to the temporary comeback of first-dollar coverage during the era of managed care. Proponents of deductibles and co-payments, today and in the past, have argued that they bring down costs by forcing consumers to make more careful health care choices. The history of major medical insurance, however, shows that high-deductible insurance failed to curb medical inflation and also hurt consumers who expected their coverage to protect their incomes from the costs of sickness and injury.
snip
Deductibles and other types of cost sharing such as co-payments (also known as coinsurance) came into being in the late 1940s because insurers, physicians, and others believed that first-dollar health coverage encouraged people to use too much medical care and drove up costs. Opponents of co-payments and deductibles countered that these provisions discouraged people from seeking basic health care, especially preventive care, and also failed to protect their finances when they had to enter the hospital or receive other kinds of expensive medical treatment. Major medical insurance, which by the late1960s was held by 39 million Americans, failed in its ultimate objectives. It did not control overall health costs; indeed, many argued, it spurred massive health cost inflation.
Also, rather than provide a solution to the problem of lack of health insurance, deductibles and coinsurance in major medical contributed to the chronic underinsurance of the American population. In the 1970s, when more Americans were insured than at any time before or since, commentators wondered why so much insurance covered so little actual health careas little as 40 percent of the health costs of insured people. Deductibles and coinsurance were a big part of the answer.
snip
much more at the link
sinkingfeeling
(51,460 posts)working full-time in 1968 and paid zero for the insurance provided by the state of Ohio Department of Finance. Then I worked for IBM from 1973 until 2015. It was in the 1990s before employees were asked 'to share insurance costs'.
https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/29/business/ibm-to-end-free-insurance.html
Celerity
(43,415 posts)insurance (in both the public and the private sectors), that cost you nothing out of pocket? No premiums, no co-pays, no deductibles, etc?
Did that include all pharma costs, so that all meds were no cost to you as well?
Were certain drugs and/or treatments not covered?
Also, was there a cap to these benefits, either yearly or a lifetime one?
Finally, was your family (spouse and children, if you had them) included?
If it all was literally free, no cost to you at all, and there was no cap, plus nothing (pharma/treatment) blocked, that would literally be the best healthcare deal on the planet I have ever heard of.
Even remove some of it (say there was a (albeit high) lifetime cap, and/or some rare and/or ultra, ultra high cost and/or experimental treatments and drugs were blocked) it still would be the best.
Certainly, I would think you would have been in a minority of Americans who had such a plan, no matter what decade we are talking about.
sinkingfeeling
(51,460 posts)for myself and my son until 1993. When we lived in Rochester, MN, my primary source was the Mayo Clinic. I had two surgeries there. Zero bills to me.
All drugs were covered under the plan and I also paid nothing for my ultraviolet treatments. I don't remember there being a cap.
In 1993, we started with a copay to doctors and a small deductible. It went south from there.
I've been on an IBM pension since I retired and they give me $3000 a year to cover premiums, co-pays, etc. It's my choice, so I use it for dental insurance, to recover my monthly $170 for Medicare, and long term care insurance.
Yes, I realize a lot of people did not have the same, but I also paid nothing when I worked for the state. Most large corporations, government, and union shops did provide free insurance to employees back then. It was a different world, where employers valued their employees more than stockholders and their own bank accounts.
Celerity
(43,415 posts)many were put under the cosh with the high deductibles alone (as I laid out), if they even had insurance at all.
I totally agree with this:
MontanaMama
(23,322 posts)I pay $1955 per month for my little family of 3. This is a silver plan with a $4400 per person deductible. Its the best I can get in MT because there is no competition here and only two companies offer plans for individuals. Its ridiculous and makes me so angry.
fightforfreedom
(4,913 posts)How do you do it?
MontanaMama
(23,322 posts)My take home pay from our shop is less than our insurance because I have to funnel money towards that bill. My husband is 61 and our bill will go down a little bit when he goes on Medicare. Im 57 so it will be a while for me the kiddo is 17 so hes on our plan through college. We do it because we have to. The ACA did a lot of good for millions of people us included when you look at pre-existing conditions and all that. However, when insurance companies could no longer charge more for pre-existing conditions, they decided to make up those dollars by charging astronomical rates based only on age. Its a racket for sure.
fightforfreedom
(4,913 posts)If you start collecting SS at 62, you should be able to sign up for medicare. People have to wait to 65. Three years doesn't sound like a long time but it is like a lifetime for some people.
fightforfreedom
(4,913 posts)However it was much more common. I worked for small companies that gave us free 100% coverage. I never even thought about healthcare coverage when I was young, It came with the job.
raccoon
(31,111 posts)fightforfreedom
(4,913 posts)Ms. Toad
(34,075 posts)Aside from a small, private employer from 2000-2013, I've always had to pay premiums and copays. So it definitely was not "free healthcare, 100% coverage" 40 years ago.
argyl
(3,064 posts)But if you have Medicare Parts A,B,C, and D you should be well taken of. I underwent two complete knee replacements upon retiring. With a private room both times and I never paid a dime, physical rehab.and all.
And my physician has been named one the ten best in the DFW area several different times.
Part A's free but premiums on B,C, and D will cost. And no doubt quality varies greatly as to your address. And at the time I lived in far west Plano, which along with Frisco and McKinney have some of the best health care facilities in the state, if not the country.
Hugin
(33,164 posts)This was a student plan offered by the university.
It covered everything including vision, dental, short and long term care. There was rarely any charge outside of the premium. Which again was affordable for a single full time student. I do remember there was a $150 a year mandatory rider to cover maternity and child birth. Which I groused about and dutifully paid. Oh, and zero deductible.
Then the nickel and dimes started. Vision, dental and care were peeled away and made entirely separate options with corresponding costs. Some coverage was entirely done away with to be covered by a HSA which ate into eventual SS payments then deductibles and co-pays were added.
To the point that the 20% the patient is responsible for pretty much covers the actual costs of medical care received and 80% seemingly disappears into the system. 80% is a hunk of change. It is argued this 80% is used to cover the costs of uninsured patients and research. This doesnt seem fair.
So long story short the frog has been boiled slowly until it is indistinguishable from broccoli.
Celerity
(43,415 posts)Hugin
(33,164 posts)Thats why you went to a broker or through an institution.
Hugin
(33,164 posts)$465 per year as long as you were a full time student not counting summer breaks if you were registered in the next years classes. So the insurance provided coverage while you were out finding yourself.
Roughly a third of the cost of a 3 meal food plan.
fightforfreedom
(4,913 posts)Of course it was not universal, not all jobs. Today they are very rare.
Casady1
(2,133 posts)healthcare did not cost the employee anything. Most companies paid for most or all of the healthcare premium.
llmart
(15,540 posts)I understand what the poster is trying to say re: health insurance because I started working in an office right out of high school and continued working in offices most of my lifetime. In the beginning (1967) and up 'til the Reagan years I always had employer provided and completely paid for health insurance with no deductibles and so did my husband. We were not union workers, but yes, we did live in the North. I had two children and never paid a penny for my healthcare and delivery of those children. I and my husband both had full dental and vision coverage. By the time my two were ready for braces it was the 80's and we had to pay a portion of that.
I realize that not everyone had that, but a lot of the people I knew did. So let's not throw away what the poster is trying to say because a good portion of it is true.
Novara
(5,843 posts)"We went from free healthcare, 100% coverage to what we have now, which can only be described as NUTS!"
When did we have 100% free healthcare?
I agree with the rest of your list.
Casady1
(2,133 posts)paid the premium for your healthcare. It was certainly true in high tech.
Joinfortmill
(14,432 posts)Oh, and you could afford a house or at least an apartment. And there were no homeless people because the 'welfare' state provided housing. At the very least they could get a room at the YMCA/YWCA or a boardinghouse. God forbid we should give a hand to our fellow man. We're so busy saying we're the greatest fucking country in the world, we don't even look around us anymore. We just buy the line.
I'm old. I'm tired. And I've seen a lot. We need to work on ourselves. Our ideals may be the greatest, but our reality is not.
fightforfreedom
(4,913 posts)Novara
(5,843 posts)Where women and blacks knew their place, abortion was illegal and it was killing women, and women couldn't even have their own credit cards.
Look, I am not arguing against these points; they're valid. However, there's no way to return to that time. And I have no idea how to accomplish a more fair tax system where everybody pays their share. Likely not as long as Citizens United is still the law of campaign finance.
Joinfortmill
(14,432 posts)Truth is we were never as great as we thought we were. In some ways things are better now, in some ways they are not. It seems particularly dangerous for democracy at the moment.
Novara
(5,843 posts)The rampant unfairness seems like it will become a powder keg at some point.
Maybe all the mass shootings are a malignant symptom of it.
Irish_Dem
(47,131 posts)-Dems and progressive values demonized, mocked and ridiculed.
-Citizens trained to be helpless, hopeless, cynical and detached from society.
-Marked increase in death, violence.
-GOP tells people not to wear masks or get vaccines in a deadly global pandemic. GOP refuses to put other measures in place to curtail deaths. Resulting in over a million dead Americans.
-GOP encourages young males to purchase military grade weapons. Teaches them to be angry, resentful, to take action against perceived enemies.
-Denigration and destruction of American professionals and American institutions. Doctors, nurses, teachers, public health workers, librarians, etc etc.
rubbersole
(6,702 posts)think tanks funded by the same, have waged a continuous long term campaign to avoid the consequences of the "browning of America". They're probably mad that women can vote. Hopefully this is the last gasp of a bunch of dinosaurs that have run this country since its founding. The rich have always been in control. Not only are there not enough of them to exist in a democracy, there are way too many people on this planet (by 80%) for anything humans continue do except radical immediate lifestyle changes to be able to exist at all. Looks like a smash-&-grab billionaire mentality on their way to their secure enclaves in New Zealand. This summer, the American west is going to give us a climate change wake up call that cannot be ignored. Water scarcity will bring out the best in loving our brothers and sisters. Ha!
Irish_Dem
(47,131 posts)The GOP has basically turned over our country to the enemy.
The GOP wants what Putin has, total permanent power and access to all state assets.
Yes the rich are going to protect themselves from climate change, as they make a killing by taking over essential resources. Water rights will probably be privatized.
All the wake up calls can and will be ignored. If the slaughter of children sitting in classrooms is a yawn for the American people, nothing will budge them off center.
The GOP loves chaos, violence, upheaval. It is a way to make the population fearful, terrorized, docile and compliant.
Joinfortmill
(14,432 posts)Amishman
(5,557 posts)With the top 1% receiving the benefit of almost all of the economic growth, the rest of us are trapped in an increasingly vicious zero sum game.
Make American jobs able to support the American dream again, and so many other problems will be significantly mitigated
The Jungle 1
(4,552 posts)The right is coming for public education, SS and Medicare.
Trickle down is a failure for the citizens of this nation. I have young friends who brag about 20 dollars an hour. I was making 20 dollars an hour working in factory's in the 80s. I had full healthcare and a defined benefit pension. 18 days vacation and holiday pay.
Why do we provide way more in "socialist" corporate welfare than we provide in social welfare? 16% of children live in poverty. That number is way higher for minorities.
Until we push back this will continue.
Stop believing the repuke lie and vote.
fightforfreedom
(4,913 posts)I forgot to mention pensions.
My dad worked on the loading docks of a meat packing plant. Hard work, he bought a house, raised a family and mom stayed home and raised the kids .She was never forced to work so we could survive. Those days are over.
wolfie001
(2,252 posts)....and the Christian right (wrong) wing. That's our problem and it is still very much with us. Murdoch was on a roll over in England at the time helping that harridan Marge Thatcher. Middle class was doomed.
Dentbla
(15 posts)This hits the nail on the head!
doc03
(35,348 posts)and did everything we could to stop it. We made concessions over and over to keep our industry alive.
I myself gave up more than $89000 in wages and benefits. The company kept a running total of our concessions
at the bottom of our checks promising every penny would be paid back. Then the company went bankrupt
(Actually 3 times total) and we got 13 cents on the dollar for what we gave up. The USWA warned Congress over and
over about critical jobs being sent offshore. Here we are with cars that can't be sold because we can't get chips from
China. Workers now blame the unions for failing to save our jobs, pensions and benefits. We have states like
WV that were totally controlled by Democrats now voting Republican. We had the steel and coal regions of
Ohio and PA that voted Democrat and now these areas are controlled by Republicans. The Republicans have managed
to turn the anger over losing our middle class to Democrats because Bill Clinton signed the Republican backed NAFTA Agreement.
I think passing the NAFTA agreement is single greatest reason we lost the middle class workers vote.
fightforfreedom
(4,913 posts)I remember when I was a teenager hearing about our jobs moving overseas. I knew that would come back to haunt us and I was just a kid who figured that out. Our leaders did not see it. They sat back and watched our good paying jobs move overseas. What did we get out of it, Walmart.
doc03
(35,348 posts)How will we fight China when we have to depend on them for critical war material? We are going to be in the same boat that Russia is with Ukraine. Short of nuclear weapons we couldn't fight China.
Skittles
(153,169 posts)terrible
doc03
(35,348 posts)got in and declared war on unions. I still think every union
should have walked out when Reagan fired the air traffic controllers. The rank and file were ready but our leadership had no guts.
Skittles
(153,169 posts)I spotted him for the greedy, selfish phony he was IMMEDIATELY and was disgusted by how many Americans fell for his act.
Joinfortmill
(14,432 posts)newdayneeded
(1,955 posts)But I think another main pillar of stupidity is the 30+ years of un-challenged propaganda from hate radio.
JI7
(89,252 posts)really accepting and acknowledging it and making excuses for rejected m racists.
For example things like the issue being state rights and not slavery.
Reagan got where he was with the welfare queen bs.
intheflow
(28,477 posts)Also one of Reagan's legacies, it's the rule the FCC had in place to prevent propaganda disguised as news, such as Fox News.
Fairness Doctrine (Link to Britannica, for those who have never heard of the Fairness Doctrine.)
Ferrets are Cool
(21,107 posts)fightforfreedom
(4,913 posts)luvallpeeps
(935 posts)Fox news. Older folks dont seem to grasp that its not really news. Its not fair or balanced. Its propaganda 24/7. All scare, all the time.
Ferrets are Cool
(21,107 posts)We the People have no jurisdiction over the SC or who sits on it. Or so it seems to me. Please educate me on this if I am wrong.
IMO, the SC has injected itself to be the RULERS of American.
ancianita
(36,095 posts)We trusted them to use rule of law, by our consent, to expand our constitutional rights, not strip or nullify them.
They proved untrustworthy, and abused rule of law which has created much anti-democracy madness.
We will only descend into their madness if we forget what the soul of America is, and what is meant when we say America is an idea.
Their side has human rights stripping madness that is not "of" America.
Our side has Rule of Law sanity that IS "of" America.
Remember President Joe Biden said. The 81 million who voted for Joe got it. They'll be back.
kairos12
(12,862 posts)recover from Bush V. Gore.
crud
(619 posts)This has been my rant for my whole adult life. Trickle down has been screwing baby boomers since Reagan. Probably why so many old white folks turned MAGA, looking to blame someone for their failed American dream.
Blecht
(3,803 posts)All the remains for us to do is to document everything and hope the next civilization learns from our mistakes.
moondust
(19,993 posts)I'd say Reagan's "trickle-down" economics and "big gubmint bad" bullshit have allowed relatively unregulated capitalism to become predatory. Of course that's what they wanted since they could no longer own slaves to prey upon. Unfortunately, Thatcher was on board with Reagan's bullshit and I believe some other countries played along, to varying degrees, with the "leaders of the free world"--eventually creating massive inequality not just in the U.S. but in other countries as well. There is probably no one person that deserves more blame for "global inequality" than Reagan. He was a bad actor who wasn't that smart and probably just did what the fat cats around him wanted him to do--for their own benefit. It was never about serving more than a handful of "The People."
Money is property--not speech. If money is speech then why aren't bullets from an AR-15 another form of expression protected by the 1st Amendment? Citizen's United poured gasoline on the fire of corruption and inequality consuming the U.S.
I don't know if it's doomed but I wouldn't bet too much on it's long-term survival given the human weakness for corruption and the slow pace of a justice system overwhelmed by all kinds of criminal behaviors in the 21st century.
gulliver
(13,186 posts)A lot of the reason for trickle down and other tricks Republicans pull is that they don't want to benefit "all." The trickling used to go to people they wanted trickled on. That's old news now that anything that trickles down is starting to be distributed equitably for the past couple of decades. Someone should tell Republicans that corporate practices are no longer on their side for the most part.
The Drug War is insanity. It is an engine of resentment and destruction, a continuation really of the Civil War. It makes people not want to be "all" with other people. It's a vicious cycle, a toxic modernity that contributes to drug addiction, itself a response in large part to toxic modernity.
Blue Owl
(50,427 posts)Skittles
(153,169 posts)it was the first time I realized just how many stupid, selfish people were among us