[Winstonm]

 Vampyr, on 2016-December-14, 10:11, said:

One problem is that even with the ACA it may be too expensive or inconvenient for poorer women to attend regular doctor or midwife appointments as soon as they know they are pregnant. No matter the number and nature of reforms, America's health care will remain fragmented until they switch to a single-payer system.

You are right. In the U.S. there is also the problem of finding decent doctors who will accept the payments from Medicaid. For those who don't know, Medicaid is basically a federal-state program to provide health care to poor with children and poor disabled.

Doctors are not required to accept payments from all insurances.

I agree with you that single payer would be the most effective method but I knowing so many so well who live on the right side of the political spectrum I can almost guarantee that they are incapable of thinking about single payer as anything other than "socialized medicine" to be rejected as forcefully as Communism.

Perhaps is a few years when the Cold War baby group dies out and the memory of the U.S.S.R. fades somewhat....

[MrAce]

 diana_eva, on 2016-December-16, 07:01, said:

Removed a personal attack and a couple of replies to it. Keep it civil please, no need to resort to name calling.

Thank you Diana.

[Cyberyeti]

 Zelandakh, on 2016-December-16, 10:07, said:

How broad is that then precisely? According to the wiki page, 12.6% of Americans are black - is that broad enough? How about the 4.8% of Asian Americans?Or the 0.9% of Native Indians + Alaskan Natives? Presumably the 76% of Christians is broad enough, so what about sub-categories - 25.1% Catholics? 15.8% Baptists? 5% Methodists? 1.4% Mormons? 0.8% Jehovah's Witnesses? Where do you draw the line for "broad"?

And we can look at other groupings too - by wealth, age, education level, lifestyle or job sector for example. How many people does such a group have to have to be defined as "broad"? For that matter, how many people would be in the group "white supremicist" or "alt-right"? I certainly do not know but it would not surprise me if there were more that identified with the term "alt-right" than some other groups that we might want to protect the rights of. And if your rule was in force, some that were on the fringes would surely add themselves to the group tactically to prevent certain laws from being passed. Which brings us back to the issue - how do you identify groups that you want to protect without emboldening groups that you want to distance yourself from? And is it even the place of government to make such a judgement? As a Liberal I would far rather phrase such bounds in terms of protecting individual rights than in terms of groups. Though that in itself is problematic sometimes of course, I think in the end you end up with a more joined up result than the alternatives.

I would cross section all the decent sized groups, white/non white, christian/muslim/other, wealthy/mid income/poor maybe others like education level and if there was a majority in all, I would consider a measure non controversial. That is not to say that other measures can't be passed, just that any that meet that criterion are probably already there.

[Zelandakh]

 Cyberyeti, on 2016-December-16, 17:42, said:

I would cross section all the decent sized groups, white/non white, christian/muslim/other, wealthy/mid income/poor maybe others like education level and if there was a majority in all, I would consider a measure non controversial. That is not to say that other measures can't be passed, just that any that meet that criterion are probably already there.

Not sure I follow this. Do you mean groups directly affected? So apartheid would be ok if it was only against 49% or less of the population? Or banning burkas and other muslim symbols from being shown in public? I am probably misreading your position though - but I certainly do not consider any legislation made to the disadvantage of a minority group not to be controversial.

[Cyberyeti]

 Zelandakh, on 2016-December-28, 16:51, said:

Not sure I follow this. Do you mean groups directly affected? So apartheid would be ok if it was only against 49% or less of the population? Or banning burkas and other muslim symbols from being shown in public? I am probably misreading your position though - but I certainly do not consider any legislation made to the disadvantage of a minority group not to be controversial.

Not at all, you're not reading what I said at all, I would regard apartheid as non controversial if a large percentage of both black and white people (polled separately) wanted it (as well as other divisions), not going to happen.

[Zelandakh]

 Cyberyeti, on 2016-December-28, 18:30, said:

Not at all, you're not reading what I said at all, I would regard apartheid as non controversial if a large percentage of both black and white people (polled separately) wanted it (as well as other divisions), not going to happen.

OK, so you want a majority of all groups involved? Is that even possible? There is always going to be some grouping of individuals somewhere down the line that do not support such legislation. And it still does not address the previous point - how large must such a group be to count? After all, I am my own group!

[Cyberyeti]

 Zelandakh, on 2016-December-29, 06:59, said:

OK, so you want a majority of all groups involved? Is that even possible? There is always going to be some grouping of individuals somewhere down the line that do not support such legislation. And it still does not address the previous point - how large must such a group be to count? After all, I am my own group!

Btw, I'm not saying it's not sometimes right to make legislation without consensus, but merely for something to be uncontroversial, it should get a majority in all of a number of fairly broad groups.

[barmar]

 Cyberyeti, on 2016-December-29, 08:28, said:

Btw, I'm not saying it's not sometimes right to make legislation without consensus, but merely for something to be uncontroversial, it should get a majority in all of a number of fairly broad groups.

Hoping for concensus among all groups is probably expecting too much for any but the most trivial proposals (which would probably also be favored by an overwhelming majority among the general population, so there's not much need to do the slicing and dicing of different coalitions). But I suppose a concensus among several broad groups that aren't significantly correlated would be adequate.

A big problem with the way much legislation happens these days is that it's highly influenced by lobbyists from industry or ideological factions (e.g. the Catholic Church), not as much based on any concensus among the population.