To wonder why no one is mentioning Bernie Sanders' great showing in Iowa?

[PitilessYank]

I have seen some threads recently about the US presidential election, in particular expressing horror at the popularity of Donald Trump, whom many Americans in fact loathe. It makes me wonder if MN users only enjoy posting negative things about US politics, and prefer to ignore the positive, like the tremendous showing of Bernie Sanders yesterday in Iowa.

Do MN users enjoy a bit of Schadenfreude when it comes to US politics? Where is the praise for the good judgement of Iowans in rejecting Trump (relatively speaking) and showing support for the best presidential candidate in many years, Bernie Sanders??

Supermum-Who do you like coming up in politics, woman-wise? I like Elizabeth Warren. Not sure where she stands on healthcare, though. She is sharp, but it does irritate me that she has not endorsed Bernie Sanders. I think she may be hedging her bets on a VP spot with HC vs. BS.

I have been really floored, TBH, on the anti-American sentiment on Mumsnet. It seems like the only good thing coming out of the USA is The Walking Dead and other tv programs! (We do make good tv, but you cannot beat the British zombie drama "In The Flesh", the first-ever zombie show featuring a gay zombie. It is an opus.)

I keep seeing snide comments about massive American refrigerators, overdone "American-style" baby showers**, how our educational system lags behind the system in the UK, how conservative Americans are, etc.

I think that Americans are much less critical of the British way of life. And I don't think it is because we have our heads up our own asses nor is it because the British are doing everything perfectly. Maybe we just don't have the energy for judging you, given all of our political infighting in the US?

Perhaps British people are just grumpier or more pessimistic in general? Maybe that is why MN folks seem so critical? I am not sure. I don't mean to offend anyone. I hate lots of things about the US, for sure, but I am stuck here, so I am trying to make the best of it!

Enough whining from me. Thanks everyone for writing comments on this thread. I am learning quite a bit.

**The only baby shower I had, in four pregnancies, was thrown by a Welsh friend of mine, ironically!

Western Illinois University predicts that Sanders will win, and they have correctly predicted the results of every presidential election in the US since 1979. He is probably going to be our next president.

Unless he is assassinated first. I worried about that with Mr. Obama. Hopefully not. That would be a disaster.

Pitiless I worked with Kirsten Gillibrand on a project for work and I was very impressed. I was talking her about my DC regarding the preK program they are in and I said that I think it should be universally offered and she listened. She emailed me a couple of days later saying she was speaking with others to see who could support this. A couple of months later de Blasio included it as a campaign promise.

She works behind the scenes to get things done. It enables her to be effective but it means she doesn't get the credit. In this case it was NY Mayor who gets the credit and not her. She comes from a privileged background but she isn't shielded from reality in the way that other politicians are. When working together we talked about childcare and women in the workplace.

I don't dislike Elizabeth Warren but I don't like the game she is playing right now. She is far more electable than HC IMO.

IME Americans are not negative in the way Brits are. When I have explained what Nov 5th is about most Americans just say 'Oh that sounds kinda cool.' They might think it sounds like the weirdest thing ever but they are too polite to say anything. Also, when it comes to education I have found that Americans smile and nod when foreigners tell them how crap their system is. Experience so far tells me it is well ahead of the UK and most of Europe when you look at the majority of areas. It is the poorest areas that bring down the results and that is not reflection of what is going on in schools but that you have broken homes and a nightmare setup for teachers to deal with.

Lions I totally get you on the fat thing. I remember on here a while ago I said it was hard to find clothes in sizes US 8 and above here in NYC. Everyone thought I was kidding or something. Explaining to people that here in NYC very few women buying $200+ dresses for work are above a 6 was a challenge. I am nearly always the fattest in the room and I am a US 10/12.

I don't imagine Bernie Sanders would introduce an NHS into the US but a fairer co-pay system I suspect would be welcomed by many people in the US - something like Canada perhaps.

He might introduce it but it won't pass as long as we have a Republican congress. I suppose it's possible if he were elected more Democrats would come in on his coattails, but even if that were so, some of those would be on the more conservative end of the spectrum. Shifting to a system that is fairer to lower income Americans means that big business (especially the insurance companies) and wealthier Americans would likely have to give up something. I am not sure there is the political will for that, especially since many of those lower income Americans who would benefit still vote Republican.

I think the reason the mainstream media here is not covering Bernie to any great extent is because the owners are not keen to highlight the success of a man from an older generation who is using ideas and principles, not self interest and greed, to inspire young people politically.

Wonder why that might be?

Personally, I hope that in both the US and here young people realise that politicians work for the people who vote. If the younger generation started to vote in large numbers they could bring about a political transformation.

Me and my DW are great fans of Elizabeth Warren and we thought she would make a great President. As it happens we also like en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Bair who would make a great Treasury Secretary and sort out the US financal system and especially sort out the dominance of Wall Street.

Speaking of anti-Americanism, I had a US PhD student and I used to say to him that the US s a magnificent country with a kind of get up and go that we have lost in Europe. There is a very great deal to be admired but also a lot that eeds to be reformed. I always used to remind my PhD student that I was someone who comes from a country that used to have an empire that spanned the World and that ahs spent the last 75 years apologising for it. The US has the same dismal future to look forward to if it doesn't take care. He is standing for office in his state legislature as a Democratic candidate so I hope he wins as he was an outstanding person and very internationalist in his view.

Trump has dared to ask the unaskable question why the US need to start wars in many countries around the word for so little gain. The perpetual war so beloved by mainstream politicians in the US is sapping America of blood and treasure. He is right to question why and mainstream politicians have no answer. Bernie Sanders is asking the question about why the gap between rich elite and the working poor has reached such appalling levels in the US - again the mainstream politicians have no answer.

And yes to responding to posters who like to accuse us of electing Bush twice. Bush did not win the election in 2000. Al Gore got the popular vote and he should have been awarded Florida's electoral votes.

"PitilessYank what do you mean when you say single payer is different from the NHS? In Canada, the model of health care delivery actually varies by province but the Canada Health Act mandates universal coverage. In Ontario, the funding is taxation based (the Beveridge Model) and the government is the payer - the same as with the NHS. As I understand though, the providers in the NHS are often government employees, whereas in Ontario they are private."

Hi LionsLedge! Single-Payer in the US refers to the payment system for healthcare services, which would be the US government, like in Canada. The provision of health care could be like the NHS (in the US the equivalent is the VA system for veterans, which is excellent), or the provision could be left to individual systems and private practices, like in Canada. I would love an NHS system here.

My guess is that we will start state-by-state instituting single-payer health care. I would like to see individuals not typically eligible for Medicare being able to buy into it, with the premiums being wage based, with the proviso that people will be covered regardless of employment. In fact, the idea of "Improved Medicare for All" is a popular one.

In terms of premiums for employer-based health insurance in the US, it is entirely based on the risk pool, so yes, I do pay less than someone who works for a company with 100 employees, as I work for an institution with thousands of employees.

If we took the health insurance premiums that individuals and workplaces pay, and called them income-based "taxes" instead, we could give ample, effective coverage to every single person living in the USA, including emergency care for "legal" visitors and undocumented people, which would be the right thing to do.

I think that is part of the issue here in the US, that people think that "Single Payer" automatically means "single provider" healthcare, and that all of the doctors would turn into US government stooges/automatons, spouting government propaganda. This is nonsense. I am a physician here in the US, working for the Federal Government, and I feel very comfortable voicing my true opinions and in fact, my professional ethics are more respected in this setting than they ever have working anywhere else.

"Perhaps British people are just grumpier or more pessimistic in general?"

• We blame the weather

Lions Actually it isn't so much the healthcare insurance industry that is powerful but the lawyers. The real issue is that the high cost of healthcare is due in part to the high cost of liability insurance that all healthcare providers need to have. The payouts are huge, in part because of the high cost of healthcare, but also because of the lawyer fees charged that end up being paid by the insurance. They need to find a way to cut back on the stupid claims (recent one I came across was a hospital sued by a patient for $1.5 million because their paper based medical records were not shredded but put in the bin). I think it is time to find a more efficient way to handle a lot of the issues people sue for.

Pit My employer has more than 30k employees. While this isn't as large as the Federal government it is sizable and our family insurance is more than double what the government is paying for coverage. The risk pool can't be that different. For us as a smaller employer, we are screwed. It is only because I believe in doing the right thing and not being greedy that we are proceeding with setting up a plan that is affordable and available to every employee from day one of their employment. Other small businesses do not have the profits we do and can't afford to offer coverage beyond something very basic.

PitilessYank Wed 03-Feb-16 16:26:47

Western Illinois University predicts that Sanders will win, and they have correctly predicted the results of every presidential election in the US since 1979. He is probably going to be our next president.

DoctorTwo Tue 02-Feb-16 18:32:52

Western Illinois University have correctly predicted every president since 1979; their prediction is for Sanders to win

I also posted this on one of the Trump threads on 27/1.

I'd be a bit sceptical about the Western Illinois University poll tbh, even though I'd personally quite like it to be true. A university poll of this sort will necessarily be biased towards Sanders, who draws a disproportionate amount of support from voters who are younger, more educated and whiter than average.

If you want to read about the odds he's facing the fivethirtyeight website has some really good articles on the primaries.

It is not a poll. It is a mock election, and it has correctly predicted wins for Republicans plenty of times.

Well, that is, the same process has been used many times. It has recently been hosted by WIU.

D2-nice!

Lions There are a lot of vested interests but they often balance each other out. Pharma has done well because of patent laws here being strictly enforced. Insurance companies make you use generic when possible and don't cover a lot items, or only cover a small portion. Also, Target and Walmart do a great job of keeping pharma costs down. I get DH's scripts from Walmart for $4 a month. If we used our insurance we would be paying $35 a month. It is hospitals that are terrible.

Mitzi, the anti Americanism wrt Halloween/Santa is not only small minded and malicious, it's ignorant. Halloween comes from the Celtic fringe of the island of Britain and form Ireland. Santa is what 'he' has always been called in Ireland.

Guy Fawkes Day would be as meaningless in the American context as Thanksgiving would be in Britain. Halloween has a lot of relevance in Britain however, with so many people of Irish heritage celebrating the holiday.

BetaDad, yes many excellent programmes exist, the remnants of the New Deal or perhaps they sprang to life in the years of the Great Society. And then there is also the invisible behemoth of 'agriculture welfare' and as you mentioned the strategic use of the military industrial complex keeping many pockets of the US employed. But you have to whisper the word 'socialism' because it makes a lot of people clutch their throats and widen their eyes in fear. The great thing this campaign shows is that there seem to be a good few people for whom the word is a positive.

W2B my late exFIL was a neurosurgeon, one of the two top med malpractice insurances premium specialties, and he was all for (1) the legalisation of narcotics saw too much of the effects of gun violence related to the illegal trade and (2) the abolition of private medical insurance. He had a few reasons for this he, a superbly trained and experienced surgeon, found himself arguing with nurse practitioners employed as gatekeepers of insurance companies over the phone about treatment he deemed necessary.

On may occasions he found himself overruled dictated to as to course of treatment or options of treatment by the ultimate payer, the insurance companies. He was very disturbed by the publication of standards of care for various specialties, because he foresaw an end to useful innovation in medicine as doctors and patients could not afford to run afoul of insurance company payment rubrics. I thought about this when the 'death panels' allegation arose while Obamacare was being debated. I think people are blind to the extent to which their medical health is dictated by companies that are in business to make a profit. Either that or they are ok with the thought that the treatment plan for their baby's tumour has been dictated by some jumped up nurse (apologies to nurses out there), and truly brainwashed by the swish of untrammeled capitalism.