I'll pick on the two policies you mentioned.red assassin wrote: ↑Sat, 30. Nov 19, 14:02I think the thing that confuses me about the "I'm just looking out for myself" pro-Trump argument is that it's manifestly not true. One might naively separate left and right wing supporters broadly into the following two categories:
a) I will accept some impact to my personal prosperity in order to make things better for the less fortunate; this is the fairest approach.
b) Policies which allow me to make the most use of what I have are the fairest.
I don't agree with position b), but I think it's a defensible and intellectually consistent position, and I think it's useful to have some people who will argue that position in society, for reasons I'll come onto presently. Trump and his ilk, however, represent a third position:
c) I will accept some impact to my personal prosperity in order to make things worse for people who are not like me.
Snip for space.
Starting with healthcare, and I'll broaden that to insurance as a whole - including home owner's and auto insurance.
Insurance is a freaking joke. I get health insurance from my company through Blue Cross/Blue Shield. I pay roughly $40 every 2 weeks for my medical coverage and I have no idea what my employer pays but I know it's significant. So you think, hey, 40 bucks for insurance, that's great! Okay, well... when I go in for my annual physical I owe 20 bucks just to walk in the door, then for the blood tests I get hit with another $160. And then, my prescriptions I'm paying ~$45/mo. BC/BS is making thousands/year for my insurance, I would guess somewhere close to 10k if not more. That's just me. Now, my deductible before they'll 100% cover me is $5000. In addition to all the bi weekly payments that I and my employer make, I have to spend another $5000 out of my own pocket before they'll fully cover me. So yeah, if I get hit by a car I'm pretty well screwed. I'll have to rely on handouts to cover my medical costs or dip into my retirement savings.
Same goes for auto insurance. I've been with my insurance company since I was 17. I've payed them thousands upon thousands but I still have to meet a deductible before I can file a claim, and if I were to file a claim, my insurance cost goes up. Home owners insurance is the same as well.
All of the insurance deductibles reset annually. No matter how much I've spent in previous years, it starts over Jan 1.
If I were to make sure I had a deductible savings for all of my insurance plans, I would need roughly $20,000 cash just set aside for a worst case scenario. That's not realistic for the average American citizen to set aside that much cash. I live in an area that's prone for tornadoes so it's not outside the realm of possibility that I am presented with a scenario where I'll endure a simultaneous home/auto/personal injury.
It's an incredible financial burden that only goes up every year that goes by. The insurance companies, also, fight you every step of the way to cover a claim. They deliberately look for ways to get out of paying up on it and do as much as they can to shift the financial costs to the policy holder. It's greed, pure and simple.
So yeah, it needs to be checked. It's absolutely insane the amount of money that has to be coughed up for non-elective procedures. Insurance needs to be regulated, the companies that are making substantial profits off prescription drugs need to be scrutinized. The whole thing needs to be flipped upside down and changed to give people a basic quality of life.
And then immigration... oh dear god. My favorite argument I hear from republicans that has been immortalized by South Park, "Dey tuk err jerbs!". I love this one... I personally don't know anyone where they were displaced by an immigrant. But I have to wonder, how ****** do you have to be at your job to loose it to an individual that has no work experience in the US, likely doesn't speak English, though not always, and may not have any formal education? Is that the immigrant's fault these "people" lost their jobs to an immigrant?
And then the whole idea that the "big beautiful wall" is going to stop the flow of criminals and/or drugs from crossing into the country. I guess we need to put up a wall around Florida's coast too. What a monumental waste of money this wall will be. But people fleeing corrupt nations and the cartels... oh no, they must be stopped at all costs!
The lack of human compassion is beyond repugnant. Not to mention, the lack of foresight as to what injecting more people into the nation's labor force would do to boost production and economic gains. But oh no, our country that was founded by people escaping a tyrant and desiring freedom for themselves and future generations, we can't allow anyone else that wants the same things in! The horror!