A sad realization listening to David Sirota

on The Hill's Rising he talked about how "the left" had "shamed Biden" to do the student debt forgiveness. I was reminded of "Hillarycare" which eventually became Obamacare. Another of my weird connections? Not so weird.

In the early 1990s people were just starting to realize how bad our health system was. Costs were being seen as "out of control." (though they look almost charity level good today) Medical decisions were just being exposed for being made for the sake of profit rather than for effectiveness. People were getting mad; just a few, but it would grow, that's for sure. How to stop it?

Cue Hillary. There was an answer, one that had worked worldwide for decades, which had controlled costs and guaranteed higher levels of care everywhere it had been tried. It was called single payer and it had to be stopped. So Hillary pasted together a ridiculous frankenstein of worthless capitalist lies and pretended to threaten to impose it on us. It was a campaign designed to fail, to create a backlash, to obscure and demonize single payer and protect the parasites sucking billions of dollars out of the public, and it worked for almost two decades. The parasites looked at the victory of the Hillarycare fraud and went on a corruption festival.

Two decades of 14% inflation and there were people reaching for their pitchforks. Again something had to be done or surely this time we would demand single payer and the age of the parasites would be over. "Activate Obama!" the parasites demanded in desperation, and the lightning rod was raised into the storm. But this time a repeat of the Hillarycare backlash would not be enough. This time the price gouging had to be hidden - it must be replaced by government subsidies! (Reagan had done a similar magic spell with oil company price gouging in the 80s replacing inflation with tax cuts) This time it didn't work, but there were enough gullible people and those who saw it for what it was were marginalized and ignored. Single payer has been defeated for how long this time? A decade? Two?

Now student debt. How many billions will be spent to "forgive" how many? A drop in an ocean compared to funding free higher education. Besides, they'll just make up the forgiven $10k with the next round of tuition hikes. Worth every penny to save the college parasites, and that's even if Biden can't come up with some way to renege on his promise again and blame Manchin or the parliamentarian or the Supreme Court.

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It is simply a half measure to reach still persuadable voters for the upcoming voters in November. they will throw a number of weak enticements in order to maintain some form of control.

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Creosote.'s picture

@humphrey @humphrey
on the sign a couple of blocks away dropped last week

cosmetic surgery - only needs to last till next election

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from 1986 until 1996. I got no help from anybody. While I am glad if that $10,000 helps anyone, it still rankles me that the little dab of help didn't get to me.
It just isn't fair. Now, I will be taxed and still paying for student loans.
Regulating costs of Universities, and making state universities free would make this a much better educated country, but we just can't have that.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp maybe this is what bothers me so much. It doesn't solve the problem. And it is a pittance to people who have large student loan debt. Please research what the average cost of tuition per year is for students. It's insane. I 100% recognize I got in right before stuff went nuts re,: costs.

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If it was easy, everyone would do it.

@Crazytimes problem entirely, but how often does that happen? $10k is still a non-trivial amount, and should help millions retire their student debt. And Biden is going to soon announce further measures on easing or lowering student loan repayments, etc. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biden-canceled-billions-student-debt-1620...

And yes, it also doesn't help those who have already paid off their loans, but it doesn't seem right to continue a wrong b/c I've been wronged and therefore everyone after me must also suffer.

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Romneycare that became Obamacare.

"Hillarycare", the name given by Rs to ridicule the Clinton admin attempt at health care reform, was not a Hillary creation. It was Bill and some of his advisors who had come up with the outlines of it months before, during the 92 campaign. Hillary was only brought in on the issue after Bill took office, after the basic approach was decided, and was in the role of PR person for the bill and not as creator or even co-creator.

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Then, we were shaking in our boots over what costs healthcare would consume soon enough... 15% of GDP! I was just understanding computer databases and working my way through my B.S. in education. The punch line to this was the University of Central Florida is now the most corporate campus in the U.S. and that they pushed out the respiratory care 4 year degree program, something that is definitely biting Mr. & Mrs. America in the ass these days, eh? Whose "choice" was this and who decided?

Hillary's big sell was offering Mr. & Mrs. America "choice", and we now have a real choice: groceries or extension of the ADA Obama/Romney care to the oligarchs...

Nothing can explain the pain and regret I have for thinking these people aimed to make a difference.

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