The Idealist Versus The Pragmatist

(A note to readers of this post. After doing some additional research into Bernie's healthcare plan, it occurred to me that my thinking on certain points in this article may be flawed.
I was thinking in terms of total healthcare spending, government and non government.
Hillary was talking about government spending only. So she may have been right about the one trillion more in government spending.
Also, I think my assumption that the 1.4 trillion dollar figure covers the entire cost of Bernie's plan may also be wrong. I'm still looking into this and trying to figure it out. I will get back to this when I do. On the bright side -- can you feel the Bern? Sanders wins New Hampshire by a landslide! Bern, baby, Bern!)

I was nervous going into last week's debate between Bernie and Hillary. I was expecting Hillary to attack Bernie on his socialism because that's the kind of thing "politicians" like Hillary do. They attack idealism in the name of pragmatism.
The reason for my nervousness was that, despite my excitement over the fact that someone like Bernie has become a viable primary candidate, and as much as I appreciate Bernie's enthusiasm for single payer healthcare and redistribution of wealth, whenever I hear him talk about these things, for the most part, he doesn't address the attacks that right-wingers use against those ideas.

This, to me, was a sign that Bernie has never really engaged in the kind of dirty, bare-knuckled fight that any of the Republican candidates would be itching to have with him. (Trump: "Oh, would l love to run against Bernie. He wants to tax you at 90 percent.")
Hillary didn't really go after Bernie's "socialism" like I thought she would but she did hit him on single payer healthcare with precisely the kind of fallacious attack that a dishonest to goodness right-winger would use.

In the early part of the debate, Hill and Bern went back and forth a few times over his position on single-payer. She said it would cost too much and he would have to raise taxes on the middle class. Bernie explained that those people would be saving money based on reduced medical costs.
Instead of refuting what Bernie said, she just repeated her bullshit argument.

Now, you would hope that the audience would be paying enough attention to what Bernie was saying so that they would get the point he was making. Unfortunately, based on my observations of things like this, rather than paying attention to what a person says, most people pay more attention to the way a person says it. And, if you notice, the pundits and analysts do the same thing and reinforce this flawed way of thinking.

So at this point in the debate, I'm sure most of the audience is thinking "well, Bernie says this and Hillary says that -- it's just a 'he said, she said.'" But then, a little while later, Bernie makes one of his most powerful points in the debate. He described the way his large grassroots/small donation campaign contrasted with her special interest/super PAC financed campaign and how she represents the establishment.

The power of this argument was not lost on Hillary. So she knew it was time to back up the dump truck she had waiting, and drop a load of horseshit on the audience. She responds -- judging from the applause -- with what her supporters must have thought was her best moment of the debate. She says "Senator Sanders is the only person who would characterize me, a woman, running to be the first woman president as exemplifying the establishment." Oh woman, please. You are the pragmatic politician. That is the definition of establishment politician. You posses all of those distinctly negative characteristics of the typical American politician.
(In a future post I will explain why a Hillary presidency would be the worst possible thing to happen to the progressive movement.)

So, while riding high after using the "gender card," Hillary then went after Bernie's best argument -- his position on single-payer healthcare. Now she needed to back up the other dump truck and drop a load of bullshit on top of the horseshit she already unloaded:

"A respected health economist said these plans would cost a trillion dollars more a year... I don't want to see the kind of struggle that the middle class is going through exemplified by these promises that would raise taxes and make it much more difficult for many many Americans to get ahead and stay ahead, that's not my agenda."

Why you #%$#&%$##ing piece of $%&#!
What the F*** kind of $%&# is that?
A trillion dollars more a year? That makes no sense whatsoever.

OK, so I tried to fact check this. Amazingly, I had a hard time just finding any mention of this part of the debate. I had to dig deep to find this:

"Reality Check: Clinton on Sanders' $1 trillion health care plan
By Tami Luhby, CNNMoney

Clinton accused Sanders of not telling voters the truth about his proposals, particularly his Medicare-for-all plan.

"I am not going to talk about big ideas like single-payer and then not level with people about how much it will cost. A respected health economist said these plans would cost a trillion dollars more a year. I'm not going to tell people that I will raise your incomes and not your taxes and not mean it," Clinton said.

Actually, according to that health economist, Gerald Friedman of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Sanders' universal health care plan would cost nearly $1.4 trillion a year.

But Sanders has recently been upfront about how much it will cost. He released Friedman's assessment alongside his plan for Medicare-for-all last month.

Also, Sanders has acknowledged that the plan calls for a new 2.2% income tax on all Americans and a 6.2% levy on employers, as well as additional taxes on the wealthy. The Vermont senator, however, argues that ultimately middle class Americans will save money under his health plan because they will no longer pay premiums to private insurers.

That said, Sanders initially was reluctant to spell out his proposal. Clinton pushed him earlier this year to release the details, pointing out that she pledged not to raise taxes on the middle class. Sanders finally unveiled the plan a few hours before a Democratic debate last month.

Verdict: False."

If you'll notice, the reporter fact checks Hillary's claim that Sanders "didn't tell the truth about his... Medicare-for-all plan.", not her claim that a health economist said it would "cost a trillion dollars more a year", the operative word being "more." Please notice that the economist's cost estimate is nearly 1.4 trillion a year, not 1.4 trillion more a year.
What a sneaky little so and so.
Funny thing -- I looked up the definition of the phrase "operative word" and it says:
"the most important word in a phrase, which ​explains the ​truth of a ​situation"

Ironically, the truth that word explains is the truth of Hillary's dishonesty.
She purposely used that word so people wouldn't ask "what are we spending now?" and just assume those costs to be additional.

So, what I did next was google how much the US spends per year on healthcare. Guess how much we spent in 2013? I'll give you a hint.
2.9 trillion. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but that means Bernie's plan, using the 2013 numbers, would save the country, including those struggling Americans Hillary cares so much about, 1.5 trillion dollars! Not to mention the fact that it would cover the millions of people the Affordable Care Act does not. This is what Bernie should have been emphasizing, emphatically.

My point is, most people will not pay attention to what Hillary said, but how she said it.
The timing was perfect -- coming after her dramatic declaration that by the mere fact that she is a woman, she can't possibly be an establishment politician -- and before Bernie had only thirty seconds to respond to the original question of her "establishmentness." Bernie chose to answer the establishment question and let her deceit stand. Now the truth had been lost.

Unfortunately, most people, especially conservatives, will come away from that exchange thinking "A trillion dollars more!? That's shocking! Raise my taxes!? That's unthinkable!"

Bernie needs to do a much better job at explaining and defending single-payer, because Hillary's crap is nothing compared to what the right-wingers will say.

In my next post, I will give Bernie my advice, not only on how to promote and defend single-payer, but how we can finance and transition to it. No charge, Bernie. Pro bono publico. For those of you who forgot your Latin, that means "for the public good."