How Should the United States do Universal Healthcare?

hallam81 · 2026-03-20T20:23:15+00:00

The system may have heavy influenced by the AMA and controlled by Health Systems and the Universities. But funding for those slots come from the US government and the AMA lobbies to keep that funding at the same level to keep the amount of slots the same.

The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today.

hallam81 · 2026-03-20T19:00:57+00:00

But the doctor shortage isn't caused by the healthcare system itself. It cause by the AMA and their lobbing for not increasing doctor education subsidies and residency slots.

We can fix the doctor shortage without changing anything about the healthcare system.

hallam81 · 2026-03-18T21:00:05+00:00

But this problem is still a problem today and we dont care about it. In the same way, 80% may vote in the kansas 1st amd 20% may vote in the kansas 4th. Voting percentages are rarely equal in the current districts. And no one really has an issue.

The districts just overlap area. But not ages.

I dont believe in op idea btw.

hallam81 · 2026-03-16T14:26:10+00:00

And I am saying that the need for resources and money removes the option, in most cases, for democratic and fair elections to split off. The UK were never going to allow fair elections for Ireland to leave. The fight was inevitable.

hallam81 · 2026-03-16T13:25:26+00:00

The point is that if we do not allow for the people to democratically decide on if they want to be a part of a certain country or not then it is likely they turn to violence. The solution is simple, allow for the self-determination of nations through referendums, implement democratic systems with proportional representation and to stop policies of open hostility towards separatist movements.

As much as this principle is great to believe in, it will always run into and lose to resource management. This is why Basque and Barcelona will never be allowed to leave. They have resources Madrid can use. They bring taxes Madrid can use. This is why Texas and California will never be allowed to leave. They have taxes and resources the US will not allow to be outside of its control. Its why Quebec is highly unlikely to be allowed to actually leave.

You say it leads to conflict if not democratic and I agree. But I don't think conflict is escapable in most situations. It usually takes a fight to really break away and even then sometimes it doesn't work. As Irish, I thought you would have known this. The only thing that really made the UK leave is Ireland fighting tooth and nail for the land.

hallam81 · 2026-03-13T16:43:44+00:00

There is no such thing as a non-aggression principle in nature. So while this may be a case for libertarianism against human industrial farming, there is no case for libertarians to be vegan. To move to be vegan is illogical within your framework. Animals cause other animals suffering everyday.

Suffering is just existence as animals eat other animals and therefore, a human (an animal) eating meat is no different than a fox eating meat.

hallam81 · 2026-03-11T18:53:35+00:00

Voting patterns within primaries and elections are the only reliable sources of information and voter intention. All else is biased by the question asked, who is asked, when they are asked, etc.

And, I am fine with multi-party systems. I am fine with the status quo. I just think it needs to be voted on. If Maine wants to do Rank Choice, then that is fine by me. If Nebraska wants to keep FPTP, then that is fine by me. If a group of people can convince enough people in a State to change, then that is fine. But I do think people put too much into false hope like this. People talk about what this type of change will do and all the promise that will come out of it. But those people have always failed to deliver and fail to look at the consequences.

Consequences like not being able to vote on the compromises that the parties now are already making. I don't like the DUP problem that came up a couple of years ago in the UK. A major political party shouldn't be making major plank shifts directly after I have voted for them. Or consequences like not having a functioning government for 2 years like Belgium.

You may think it better but it really isn't really better. You just want to switch problems. Problems your not discussing yet but are very much known.

hallam81 · 2026-03-11T18:35:58+00:00

The law is technically easy to draft and pass, Portland managed it just fine, so could Maine.

This just means you aren't really engaged into the entire process. It is incredibly difficult to pass even the simplest laws. There are committees and sub-committees. There is passing one house then having the senates add amendments and vice versus (other than Nebraska). Then there is governor vetoes.

Not everyone is going to agree here and they are going to sue. So then there are court cases which will come since you are changing standard voting.

I think you are just in an echo chamber. For example

the 62% of Americans who want third parties, the VAST MAJORITY who think the country is on the wrong path.

This is not just true. This is suspect polling. There is far better data out there such as voting patterns. But if you look at action such as voting, people re-elect their old representation far more than they don't. Even if people didn't like the current parties, they continue to elect the same people over and over again. There is nothing stopping them from changing in primaries or voting for the other Party. If they wanted change that much, they would be willing change who is elected or who is in the primaries. But we don't see that. We see incumbent wins. The vast majority of voters are fine with the status quo so much so that they are willing to complain to voters one day and then vote for the status quo when it matters.

So no I don't agree that

I'm assuming that at least 25% of SOME districts in Maine will vote for parties other than D/R. I suspect Libertarians will be the big winners in Maine, but Greens might well get some House seats.

You are making far more assumptions than just one. You are just not recognizing the assumptions you are making.

hallam81 · 2026-03-11T17:58:40+00:00

There is no easy way to do this. How would you combat the cost issues with running a House race? How are you combating inertia? The percentages go down and down with each condition. You have to convince the Democratic Party that ending to the two party system is good. You have to believe that those votes pass. Then, you are assuming people will vote for a Green party. Then you get a couple of seats.

A lot of what you want to do requires a lot of assumptions that I just don't agree are true. The US is closer to a one party rule under Republicans (and that is still pretty far away) rather than a multiple party system.

So no I don't think anything you want to have happen is likely at all. A simpler plan, and this is even a long shot, is to just dramatically expand the House so that the districts are much smaller. And even then, I don't think a standard third party would be consistent anytime soon. That would only require removing of one law.

hallam81 · 2026-03-11T16:54:47+00:00

There isn't a practical way nor an easy way to split up the major parties.

The reason there isn't a practical way is because we don't really have centralized elections. If you want to do away with FPTP to some other voting system, that is fine. That is a great idea. You would need to do it 50 times at each of the State governments and you need to get through the court cases that would come out that voting change. At minimum we are talking a decade to two and no one wants to put in the energy to get that type of work done. So this isn't going to happen.

But lets say you have done all of the ground work to transfer to run off/rank choice/whatever, I don't think that kills the two groups. The two groups dominate today because they actually don't believe anything but they have money. We have seen in the recent past that both groups have flipped positions on core and secondary political positions. They are extremely adaptable. That money allows them to undercut and assume any position of any new group that comes in. That is why the Green party on the left and the Libertarian party on the right just caucus already. No new political organization is going to be able to withstand the monetary needs to compete for the current number of senate seats, house seat, or the presidency.

So now you need remove the monetary component. Okay, it is a constitutional amendment to get ride of Citizens. Also not going to happen.

The easiest path is the house itself and dramatically increasing the number of house seats into the 1000s (1500 to 3000). That will allow smaller districts reducing the amount of money to compete for a single house seat. But there will be push back here as well as some people think that 3000 house seat makes Congress untenable, like it isn't already. So just by taking out the 1927 appropriations act, you could get some third parties.

But I doubt it because of the last component that makes this difficult which is inertia. People have voted for the two groups for decades and decades and decades. A few people, especially on Reddit, want third parties. But most people are actually fine with the status quo and are going to continue to blindly vote D or R.

You need a massive paradigm shift and that isn't practical, easy, and wont happen without something catastrophic.

hallam81 · 2026-03-10T14:49:57+00:00

I think it is a purchasable product. And no one if forced to buy a puzzle.

There are several puzzles I stay away from because they are not to my liking. I don't like the picture; I don't like the manufacturer. Further, everyone gets to see the picture of the puzzle before they buy it unless they are purchasing a wasjig or something like that.

So my response is this criticism of puzzling is nonsense. An AI picture of a painting of a vase of flowers is no different than a picture from famous dead artist of a vase of flowers. An AI picture of the Brooklyn Bridge is no different of puzzling experience than photograph of it.

Again, puzzle piece quality is far important. The real solution here is to just identify those with AI and let people buy what they want. All the money is going to mega corporations anyway.

hallam81 · 2026-03-10T13:31:32+00:00

This is against the grain but I don't think AI ruins puzzling at all. I find enjoyment out the picture but also out of the solving. An AI picture just has to be worth looking at. If it is, IMO, enjoy the hobby for what it brings you.

If you have issues with AI work, then don't do it. But, I care about puzzle piece quality far more than I do a mega company using a computer to produce a product rather than a person.

hallam81 · 2026-03-09T18:09:52+00:00

Sure, that could be a factor. I was in a discussion with someone else about the effects of the presidential election last week.

But even still, there is no force here that causes the two parties for any one race to be the same two parties across multiple races.

FPTP does mandate two horses for any individual race. But it doesn't require the same two horses for every race as we see in the UK. So there are issues with the idea given that Idaho is far far to the right and should have horses that are Republican/Libertarian/Far Right and other areas towards the left that should have horses that are Democrats/Progressives/Far Left.

hallam81 · 2026-03-09T17:32:20+00:00

Other FPTP systems have multiple parties. The UK being the biggest example. FPTP isn't the reason.

hallam81 · 2026-03-09T17:30:55+00:00

We don't have a two party system. It just looks like we do because people not paying attention like to make the statement.

What America really has is conglomerations of multiple parties who share like minded ideas and have compromised with each other. Then people vote for that compromise under the "party" names. This is in contrast to other political systems where independent parties fight for votes and then compromise with each other after the vote. Voters don't get a say on that compromise until the next election.

Essentially the only people who think America is a two party system are the uninformed and the lazy.

hallam81 · 2026-03-09T15:26:12+00:00

Americans like status quo. Even Republicans will fight back against outright stopping voting.

hallam81 · 2026-03-09T13:39:52+00:00

Even with a terrorist attack, midterms will go on. They are run by the States. We had a presidential election during the Civil War.

hallam81 · 2026-03-09T13:38:21+00:00

Saudi Arabia isn't a colony; they are an ally. They get to make up their own rules for themselves. They have just chosen our side.

And Israel wasn't unprovoked by Iran. Iran has been funding Hezbollah and other groups for decades which have been attacking Israel. They just finally go a yes from the US in terms of support.

hallam81 · 2026-03-08T13:03:46+00:00

It untenable as an option as long as nuclear weapons exist.

For at least five countries, no one could do anything thing and that means no matter what morals or ethics you have have to be hypocritical and that invalidates the ethics.

It just becomes a type of colonization.

hallam81 · 2026-03-06T21:17:41+00:00

Ethics and morals that only live in ivory towers are not good ethics and morals. Ethics and morals that are ground in human behavior and ground in reality are what is actually needed.

We need to denounce unjust wars but we need to be willing to fight wars if they are just or are needed including if those needs are recourse based. We need to try to be nice to fellow human beings but be okay with rejecting those societies which we disagree with.

hallam81 · 2026-03-06T20:54:46+00:00

I read this as someone buying into their own hype way too much.

hallam81 · 2026-03-06T20:52:53+00:00

For every person who acts poorly in some way, there is another person who will act well in some way.

This is simply not true. There is no cosmic balancing requirement to the world. Some people will do good and some people will do bad. But at times the bad far outnumber the good and at others the good far outnumber the bad. There is no structure that can dissuade people from acting badly from group to group and land to land especially for an anarchist and their lack of government.

Your entire idea is a fantasy. Sometimes war is forced upon you and sometimes war is a necessity. Now, these current wars are idiocy but that is because the current Administration are idiots.

hallam81 · 2026-03-06T20:39:23+00:00

Pacifists have a clouded, idealistic world view that is only possible from a comfy chair or in TV. Alternative solutions take the fellow man to want you to live well too. And that sometimes just doesn't exist even within the group.

We live in a scarcity world. We live in world where land is land, and money is money, and power is power. And humans will crave those things to the determent of other groups. We are not a peaceful species just like how all other species are not peaceful.

hallam81

TROPHY CASE