Congratulations To Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez For Her Upset Victory

It looks like you think the ACA mandate was only for "healthy people" to "be in the insurance market". It mandated ALL people of all ages and health circumstances be forced to buy insurance, and the premiums for people who weren't "healthy young people" shot up by huge amounts, much higher that what they were paying before the ACA....after Øbama said their premiums would drop by a bunch ($2,500/year?). That was just another lie, like "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan" and "if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."

I hate to lay waste Don Diego's long pontification, but there are important distinctions between a Socialist and a Democratic Socialist. Rather than try to educate Don Diego myself, I will direct him to this recent article in Slate. 

It is worth a read because not only does it cover those distinctions, but it also covers how attempts by Hannity, the Daily Caller, and Fox & Friends have failed spectacularly when trying to paint her as a radical like our friend Don Diego is attempting to.  It turns out Americans really like her platform. 

Bob, I don't deny there are problems with Obama Care, in fact, I complained about them often in the old forum. However, it is better than the old system as people with preexisting conditions can buy insurance. Before, it wasn't available to people with pre-existing conditions no matter how much they were willing to pay. The biggest problem with Obama Care is that it retained private for-profit insurance companies rather than eliminating them.  

Now we have to look at the Republican plan.  During the 2016 election, Trump promised on day one he was going to pass an Obama Care replacement that would cover everyone, cost patients less money, cost the government less money and would cover pre-existing conditions.  After six months of wrangling, the best Trump and the Republicans could come up with was something that would cover 30 million fewer people than Obamacare, wouldn't cover pre-existing conditions, would cost people more for policies and would cost the government more.  In other words, it was an absolute failure.

The really ironic thing is that the Republicans managed to do something that Obama was never able to do. They made Obama Care popular.  Once the people saw how awful the actual Republican plan was, Obama Care got really popular. Now all those Republicans that ran on repeal and replace are uninterested in doing anything on health care other than sabotaging our current system and driving the costs up for everyone. 

So, . . . like, . . . umm, . . . this thread has been going on for almost a month, . . . and the discussion has been about Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  No one has mentioned "Democratic Socialist".

DonDiego submits a post distiguishing between capitalism and socialism, so's those interested, if any, can understand the distinction.  And suddenly, it becomes of extreme importance to distinguish between Socialism and Democratic Socialism !

DonDiego calls "Bull-Puckey" !

But he'll play along anyway.

The Slate article which Mark recommends concludes as follows:

" . . . these Democrats [Democratic Socialists - DD] aren’t proposing that every decision at a small business must be OK’d by a committee of Marxist college professors who want to be paid $100,000 a year to work 10 hours a week. They’re talking about the parts of socialism that Americans might like, and they’re doing it in a way that emphasizes work rather than entitlement and puts common interests ahead of cultural divisions. It doesn’t seem like a bad strategy!"

Ahh, . . . "the parts of socialism that Americans might like", . . . especially the parts where income is redistributed so that everyone has access to everything that The Government says thay should have access to.

DonDiego calls "Bull-Puckey" !

Oh, . . . and by the way, . . .

The concluding paragraph of the Slate piece begins: "The right-wing media seems to believe that Americans have been so conditioned by Soviet-era revulsion to the broad concept of 'socialism' that they’ll reject anything Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez say that can be labeled as such."

Pretty much any article which concludes by telling the reader that opponents have been "conditioned" to disagree with the authors of the article is likely propaganda, . . . not an unbiased evaluation. 

"Democratic Socialism" is to "Socialism" just as the nose of a camel seeking entry to a tent is to the entire camel.

Conservatives dont have a problem with Socialism....they just have a problem with liberals.

Trump has been initiating far more Socialistic policies than anything Obama did but his base is largely ok with it and aren't marching in the streets with their guns.      And thats fine by me.

Medicare gets overwhelmingly higher approval marks from its base than does its private sector equivalents - even amongst Republicans.   

You are WRONG with your statement ---"Conservatives dont have a problem with Socialism." This is just more high windage that occurs everytime you post. You don't speak for me and millions of other Conservatives. But you are correct, we do have problems with socialist liberals.

I let the polls and rhetoric from people like you speak for itself.    Trump's approval ratings amongst his "anti-socialism" base are higher than ever - even in the midst of record tariffs and destrution of free trade deals....   and his calls for government subsidies in business.  People like you seem to have a hard time calling out that socialist behavior.   

Why do you suppose that is, David Miller?  

"socialist behavior?" What are you talking about? 

I spelled it out for you in my previous post.   I wrote it in English.

DonDiego writes:

Pretty much any article which concludes by telling the reader that opponents have been "conditioned" to disagree with the authors of the article is likely propaganda, . . . not an unbiased evaluation

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What a co-inkee-dink....I reach the same conclusion any time an article uses the Soviet Union to refute the principles of Socialism.