2nd Presidential Debate
Submitted by Paul on Tue, 10/07/2008 - 10:09pm.
The clear loser? Me, who really wanted to climb into bed early and get caught up on my sleep.
The clear winner? Those who did.
This was a town meeting? Let's not let Tom Brokaw do this again.
The first Presidential debate was, so far, the only one that really well done and let the candidates come close to an actual debate.
But we must have a winner and a loser, so I have to admit that Obama is the winner in this. Why? Because McCain did NOT do what he had to do and that was to change the momentum of the last couple of weeks and he clearly didn't do any such thing.
Wasn't this the same John McCain that said earlier today that the gloves would come off? Looks like he couldn't undo the laces to me. There was the occasional dig here or there ("it's great to have you at a town hall meeting") but really unless the viewer spent all of his or her time reading news stories, the digs went right over their heads.
Obama is Mr. Steady, cool calm and collected.
If you look at pollster.com tonight you see the state of this race. They classify five states as tossup:
Virginia (Bush won 53.73% in 2004)
North Carolina (56.02%)
Indiana (59.95%)
Missouri (53.30%)
Nevada (50.70%)
This clearly shows McCain is back on his heels playing defense. Nothing he did or said tonight changed his position.
Update: Those krazy kids over at National Review's The Corner are rather grumpy tonight
Debate-Health Care Reform
I spent thirty years in health insurance and cause/effect statistics were my job. During the Health Insurance part of the debate I began think how McCain/Palin want sex education stopped and McCain announced on The View they would put the “Right “ Justices (3 to retire) on the Supreme Court and to get Roe vs. Wade overturned.
Then I heard the McCain Health Care Reform Plan. Under the McCain Health Insurance Plan, the government pays your insurance company $5000 for families, $2500 for single person and then you pay tax on that.
I started thinking about proposthe reality of the all costs ed on these divisive issues. Lack of sex education does equate to more pregnancies. In 2004, the CDC gave a conservative estimate of 840,000 as the number of abortions performed in that year. Increasing the numbers to 1,000,000, then multiply by $5000 (as the median cost of a maternity claim) and multiply that by 1,000,000. Insurance carriers and Medicaid would have five billion dollars in maternity claims. Your insurance rates and taxes would have to go up.
People would have to decide how much to pay, what kind of coverage they need and the average person does not know what medical costs can run. Electing too little coverage can be financially devastating. If you are seeking to leave a company, they will not assume the responsibility of giving advice. Unregulated insurance is not the answer.
Also, everyone switching insurance carriers at once would cause an increase in administrative costs of catastrophic proportions. Customer service, medical provider inquiries, enrollment, switching to other different insurance carriers (HIPAA), other insurance inquiries, posting government payments would be buried in work, creating more jobs but insurance companies would have to factor this into your insurance premium.
Once everyone switches insurance, the Enrollment/eligibility must be in place first. Only then could insurance payments can be made to the hospital and physicians. With massive eligibility changes taking place, delays would be long. Hospitals and physicians cannot afford to wait for their money. They will ask the patient to pay to pay their bills out of their own pocket.
The chances of the McCain insurance allotment of $5000 covering the family premium continues to dwindle. Not only will you be taxed on the $5000, you also will pay more taxes to cover the Medicaid births, welfare, child care and the building of the orphanages for the children put up for adoption.
McCain's insurance plan is much like deregulating the mortgage industry. It would lead to further economic collapse along with tax imposed upon us for it. It is like tossing someone in the ocean and then throwing out a life line made of cement.
We have to take charge of our economic future and vote for the best reform possible. Vote for Obama, the candidate that truly has positive, effective reform in mind. It is not the time to run a divisive, ugly and potentially damaging campaign just to get elected or distract people from what is really important.
If McCain’s got a firm hand on the tiller, then the boat is the USS Swift Boat of Divisive and Damaging Politics.