Darn skippy. I get a tax benefit right now thru a flex spending account. You can bet that'd be gone under McCain's plan.

exactamundo...and anyone out there with an HSA account, especially if you have a lot of health issues....that money disappears too quickly.

CNN.com has the same numbers but in favor of Obama

Maybe it's just that I'm not looking to get offended, but I took it to mean that most people (particularly younger people who may not be home-owners yet, that looked like a college kid to me) didn't have a clue what the mortgage situation was or how the mortgage market was structured until it boiled over. That's how I interpreted it and I would guess what McCain meant, but if you want to be upset about it, be my guest.

And on the mortgage bailout, you're not catching the difference between mortgage-backed securities (what the government is about to start buying) and mortgages (what McCain proposed they buy).
A mortgage-backed security is essentially an investment device that pays dividends to holders (investors) using the interest income that the mortgages which back it bring in. It's a way for a mortgage holder to lower their risk in issuing or holding a mortgage because he can sell the right to some of the interest to a third-party. Because of that it was a popular way for issuers of sub-prime ARMs (which are at a high risk of default because of who they are being made to) to pass along some of their risk and make it relatively safer to issue sub-prime mortgages. Now that people aren't paying their mortgages and going into default, the security isn't receiving an interest payment, so they are losing money. Further, no one else wants to buy a junk security that isn't paying, so they can't sell them to anyone and have lost their entire investment. The government is buying these securities up to give money back to the investment houses which held them and take the "toxic debt" out of the market to let it die (or hopefully make some of the money back when the housing market turns around).
McCain's plan on the other hand is to buy the mortgages themself and let the government take the loss of converting the ARM's to fixed rate mortgages which should hopefully allow people to have lower payments which they could then afford to make. I assume the government would then sell the revised mortgages back onto the market. People paying their mortgage gives banks cash to lend out, so then banks can start making loans again and the credit market unfreezes.

I'm not an expert on hybrid-securities, but that's the way I understand it and hopefully it should help clear some things up.

I have to admit that watching McCain shuffle around the floor was painful to watch. He looked every bit his 72 years of age. Scary!

I think Obama won the debate hands down.

My last point before I go to bed...McCain said out of his own mouth that he is not in favor of taxing the rich (I believe that includes himself and Cindy too)

"I've got some news, Sen. Obama, the news is bad. So let's not raise anybody's taxes, my friends, and make it be very clear to you I am not in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy. I am in favor of leaving the tax rates alone and reducing the tax burden on middle-income Americans by doubling your tax exemption for every child from $3,500 to $7,000."

and that $7000 is a spit in the bucket Senator McCain and where are you going to get that money from and what about us without kids...how much do we get back because for some God forsaken reason, I wind up owing the gov't annually (not alot but enough to make me hate tax time) and there are some rich bastids out there who don't pay at all.


and ummm what about those fools in AIG that just got bailed out of the financial mess and ran off 400G?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081008/...RKrKCsvaes0NUE


Way off the topic....why is there a storm out there called Norbert? Sheesh....

Good night all

I agree completely, this is exactly (one of) the key problem(s) with modern health insurance, and it's a bastardization of market conditions that has led to awful unintended consequences.

However, the solution to fixing this issue isn't necessarily nationalization or "forcing" insurance on people. Indeed, this sort of nationalization would seem to play exactly into the current problems with health insurance - namely, that the insurance companies themselves are the policymaker (pun completely intended).

If you want affordable medical care for every American, this is a completely different issue than nationwide health insurance for every American. The entire concept of insurance is pooling risk - simply handing out insurance without additional intake in premiums would be a disaster, and would force the insurance companies themselves to round up more income. Guess how that would happen?

Again - health insurance is a commodity. Medical care is, as well, to a certain extent - but one that can be subsidized by the State. Why do we focus on the former instead of the latter? Why allow the insurance cabal to affect the cost of the latter, period, in a misguided attempt to "have it both ways" and prop up a crappy system?

For the record, neither candidate's plan seems to address this fundamental disconnect in a substantive fashion.

I've got grad student health insurance through my school, so it's pretty low.

I think that insurance attached to employers for reasons that are two-fold: one is that companies with highly skilled workforces need to keep their workers healthy because they are hard to replace, so it was in their interest to insure them. Then unskilled workers saw what was going on and collective bargaining led to a lot of union workers getting health insurance, and it kind of spread from there.

I never thought of that... you bring up a valid point!

That makes a lot of sense.

"The Straight Talk Express lost a wheel on that one".. lol. They just played that clip of Obama on tv this morning. I must've missed that line when I was getting home and had to go from car to home. I think it trumps "Say it ain't so, Joe" as a one liner (and it's grammatically correct).

Mortgage bailouts: It seems to me that McCain's plan would be doing exactly what he argues against in most instances.. nationalizing our mortgage system rather than leaving it to the private sector. I don't think I want the government being our primary mortgage lender. I think regulation of the private sector's practices makes more sense than creating yet another large government agency.

Health care: I've been working in health care for 21 years now so I feel like I know a bit about it. There are so many facets to this. Some facets are commodities (pharmaceuticals, durable medical equipment, etc), some are not. In Michigan, all hospitals are required to be non-profit. As a non-profit, I don't think you can argue that it is a commodity. However, all the vendors that a hospital must use are commodities. It's just not cut and dried. *If* we don't see health care as a right, then why must hospitals treat anybody who walks into the ER and eat the cost? They should be able to require payment immediately. Physicians in our medical group earn approximately $150K a year. This is NOTHING compared to what the top earners in "commodity" businesses make. They aren't getting $47 million severance packages, that's for sure. They are saving lives, keeping us alive, making us healthy and that's what they make. They also spend significantly more than the rest of us on their educations and pay extraordinary amounts of money in malpractice insurance (another commodity that feeds off of the health care industry). Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan is non-profit. Other health insurances in Michigan are not.

Dictionary.com's first definition of commodity is: 1. an article of trade or commerce, esp. a product as distinguished from a service.

Health care is a service that needs to utilize commodities to provide that service. I wouldn't call it a commodity in and of itself. I believe it is a right as in "The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Without health care, the right to live and pursuit of happiness is pretty near impossible for many. Personally, I put it in the same category as Education. Education is also a service that utilizes commodities to provide the service. We have a right to equal opportunity to education and it is my personal belief that health care should be treated the same way. I don't think the agencies (hospitals) that provide the service should be the ones who bear the burden when the people don't have a way to pay for it. Car mechanics aren't required to fix your car if you can't pay for the service and parts. Why are hospitals required to fix people if they can't pay? Because we (society) recognize that human life is valuable.

People will always say "well there's a free clinic in my neighborhood" and that's great to hear. It's not true in many neighborhoods. In many neighborhoods, the only way people get free care is for the hospitals to eat the cost of ER visits for things like strep throat, sinus infections and indigestion.

And yes, this credit crisis is also hitting the health care industry. If the credit market doesn't open up soon, health systems may not have cash flow to purchase the needed commodities to provide their service. The health care system that I work for had much invested in the Reserve Primary Fund (money market), which is where our Pensions were. If you haven't heard of this fund, you can read more about it here: http://www.usnews.com/blogs/new-mone...-may-lose.html
But it fell below $1 because it was holding bonds from Lehman Brothers. What a mess. They have to guarantee our pensions so that money has to come from other sources now. Add that to the extra millions of dollars of free care we're providing now that the unemployment rate in Michigan has been over 7% for months on end...

My basic point is that health care is not nearly as cut and dried as "is it a commodity, right, privilege or responsibility?"

Wow many points to comment on. I think CrackerBarrel said that 'you saw what you wanted to see'. My husband and I watched it and he kept saying, 'I don't know how ANYONE could want to vote for that idiot! He's making absolutely NO sense.' (referring to Obama). I explained that Obama supporters are probably saying the same thing about McCain. I don't expect to see ONE person on here or anywhere else who supports either candidate to say that the other one took it. Just won't happen.

My favorite part: Obama saying 'Tal-EEE-ban'. Everytime he said it we broke into 'Come Mr. Tal-ee-ban, Tal-e-me-ba-na-na'. I also wish that he could find another buzz word than 'fundamental'. VERY overused.

BO seemed like a robot. He would wait his turn, and then someone would flip his switch, and it was time to go back to work. HE reminds me of George Bush in his appearance and demeanor...he's smooth. Everytime he opened his mouth, I felt like I was in a high school auditorium listening to a speech for Senior Class President. 'You want Guns-N-roses blasted on the loud speakers every morning? SURE! You want pizza for lunch everyday? No problem! Elect me, and it will happen!' He just has NO passion to me. The more I see him, the more I think he's just playing the people.

For McCain, I felt bad watching him not sit down. Didn't think about the 'excitement' factor someone else mentioned. More that the effects of war on a person. All of you know my hubby's a disabled vet, he can't sit still to save his life....and he's more than half JM's age. I think with all he's been through it's really unfortunate opposers degrade his appearance.

Health care....wow...I hope that anyone who believes in a blanket government health care plan could visit another country that has it. I lived in Germany, and seeing some of the army wives go in and have babies scared me enough to come home and do it here. You get what you pay for, most definitely. While I don't think that health care is a privledge, I just don't see a logical way of being fair to everyone without SEVERELY sacrificing the quality of care, or driving the economy further in debt.

The comment about freddie and fannie, I didn't know who they were either until we bought our first house a couple of years ago. And, it wasn't even a thorough study of them. Just the first time I really noticed the name. Thank god they have nothing to do with my mortgage. I think it's funny that BO was bragging about proposing more crackdown on the two a year ago, like doing something a year ago would have really made a difference! But, it was probably when he decided he was going to run for office.

Just a few of my own observations...

Edited because I just read AGD's statement "My basic point is that health care is not nearly as cut and dried as "is it a commodity, right, privilege or responsibility?" SO TRUE!!!

Same with the pundits I was watching. I'll admit I barely noticed it when McCain said it.

Not sure it's that new. As I understand, the Treasurer already has the authority McCain was talking about -- it was in the bailout bill passed last week. The only thing McCain added was that he would direct his Treasurer to exercise the authority he already has.

I would have liked to see one of the candidates -- either one -- turn this question around a little. First, I would have said it's not a commodity, at least not as that term is usually understood. And I agree with AGDee that it's a right in the sense of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." That's a government protected/enabled right, which is different from a right to have the government provide it. I would have like to see someone say "it's a right and a responsibility." Every human being should have access to adequate health care (right) and in a country like ours, we have a responsibility to make sure that adequate, affordable health care is available to everyone; then people (parents especially) have a responsibility to avail themselves of it.

I wanted to ask about that. I was tired when I watched the debate, so I couldn't decide if he was really looking (and sometimes sounding) that old or if it was just my fatigue that was projecting Sarah Palin doomsday scenarios onto his appearance.

I was interesting to watch it on CNN, with their Ohio undecided voters focus group and their dial meters. Granted, it was only 25 people -- hardly any kind of scientific sample -- but it was fascinating how often when McCain was talking, especially about the economy, he was literally "flatlining." He was getting no response at all. Even when he was getting positive responses, they usually were not as positive as Obama's.

I have to disagree about having employers insure their employees. This is one of the best ways to assure that everyone- whether sick or well has access to good insurance. It is much harder to find insurance as a person with medical issues when you go into it alone. The lovely thing about group insurance policies is that it evens out the risk. The insurance company can give a decent rate because they can lump healthy and sick patients together. Also, insurance companies cannot then dump a single employee who may be using a lot of health care resources because the group policy doesn't allow them to exclude one patient.

I actually couldn't watch to entire debate...both parties ignored the questions frequently and went on their talking point tangents. One thing I did notice before turning off the tv, however, is that John McCain looked like a nursing home patient shuffling around the stage, especially against a healthy looking Barak Obama.

P.S. McCain's tax plan does call for an increase in taxes. He wants us to pay taxes on the health insurance benefits given to us by our employers, a benefit that is currently tax exempt.

I do have to say, Obama did a really good job at not showing any emotion while McCain was talking.

However, that may have cut some of the passion out when he was answering.

Boyfriend asked me "WTH, so they're not doing podiums anymore?" I explained to him that that was what McCain wanted - he said "Why? McCain looks OLDER when he's not behind a podium."

Has anyone else noticed that Obama seems to have aged a little bit through this campaign? If he's elected, his hair is going to be completely white after his first term.

have you seen clinton and bush?


LOL

To be clear - I'm not saying that medical care is a commodity, but rather than pooled insurance risk is a commodity. Under the definition below, this is clear:

Insurance is not a service - it's a product. You're paying for the ability to pool risk with others.

Remember that when these two specific politicians talk about "health care" they are NOT talking about "medical care" - each of their plans calls for nationwide health insurance coverage. That's why I'm using the commodity angle - otherwise, I agree that medical care is a service and separate. That's my entire frustration.

This is kind of a strawman - remember that the original ideals of the frames were "life, liberty and the pursuit of property" . . . and 'life' refers to the ability to live without impediment from others or murder at the hands of the state or individuals, not the ability to live until you're 80.

I think this paragraph kind of argues against itself - there is a key difference between education and health care, as well: people are far more willing to pay high-end prices for high-end health care, and the individuals who practice are much more specialized and highly trained.

Teachers don't get paid nearly what they're worth, and I think most of us agree that we suffer for it. What would happen if doctors suddenly became (de facto or literal) government employees, too? Will people move to the suburbs to live near the good schools and hospitals? Does the inner city get screwed again (and I realize they already are in this regard, but the point remains)?

Again, I think there are dozens of unintended consequences that we miss when we argue for the idyllic 'forest' of universal health care and don't examine the 'trees' of "how on Earth did this system get so screwed up, and why aren't we simply tearing it down instead of applying a Band-Aid?"

I agree completely that the burden should never be on the hospital itself - the rise of "mandatory-care" ER policies and the like is probably just as detrimental to the average person as the conduct of insurance carriers to drive up costs and reduce coverage.

Agreed completely - great post, Dee. Thanks!

Except for a few questions, last night's debate was a snore for me. If I had to listen to McCain say "my friends," "I know how to fix it," or hear either candidate say "look here" one more time, I would have been ready to stab myself in the eye.

THANK YOU for mentioning this! I hear a lot of people say that Canada's health care is so much better because it's free. Well, the Canadians I know prefer their American health care. Apparently the emergency care is a little better, meaning that you're not going to go into hock for a broken arm, but the preventive care sucks.

Health care shouldn't be a privilege in this country, but it is and I'm not sure how to make that better.

I just watched a forum on the financial bailout, and apparently the bailout bill allows the Treasury Secretary to "do what is necessary" to fix the credit crunch. So what needs to happen is that banks need to be able to sell their mortgage-backed securities to raise capital to make loans. Right now no one is willing to buy them because there is the perception that because banks have complex pricing models they have access to better information than do potential buyers about which securities are worth more and which are worthless, so there's the fear that if anyone tries to buy mortgage-backed securities that the banks will only sell the low value, highest risk ones. Because of this no one is willing to buy the securities off the banks for fear of getting worthless securities packages for prices much higher than they would be fairly valued. So there are two ways to address the problem. One is to authorize the government to buy securities, in which case the bank will sell the low-value ones to the government, giving the banks some money to loan and reassuring buyers that the securities the banks still hold are worth more. This is the plan that everyone has been focusing on and the one the government is likely to do. The other is the plan McCain mentioned last night, to authorize the government to buy and renegotiate mortgages so that people can start paying again and the highest-risk securities packages become worth more so that people are more comfortable buying securities from the banks. This idea hasn't gotten a lot of play in Washington, but a lot of business school professors and economists think that it would work better. So hopefully McCain's proposal to take that route will give it some traction in Washington.

^^^ Thanks for the info. I haven't had a chance (time?!) to delve into it all too deeply yet, so I appreciate any education I can get.

It doesn't help that it ended up being 450 pages! You almost wonder if they make it that big to discourage people from seeing what's really in there.

www.fivethirtyeight.com is a site I really like, and I thought they had a pretty good post-debate post, plus some post-debate polls and recalculated projections, with several links that might be of interest.

I like that site as well. Nate Silver did an impressive job predicting what would happen in the Democratic primaries in Indiana and NC.

Slightly off-topic, but Nate is also one of the best baseball statistical analysts out there. I first became aware of his work on Baseball Prospectus (www.baseballprospectus.com). If you're a baseball fan, you should definitely look up some of his stuff.

/end hijack

Not really off topic. His analysis at FiveThirtyEight.com is, as I understand it, based on his baseball statistical work.

The best part of Silver's work is that his baseball work and political work are actually pretty different - conceptually, they're based on similarity modeling, but the implementation is pretty different (and actually, his political models are genius because they use pretty simple assumptions to come up with a sophisticated model, whereas PECOTA is a massive sprawling awesome mess).

The second best part? The Burrito Bracket. I'm a massive fan of the dude's work - very impressive, and I'm very jealous I didn't think of the 538 method first, even while upset that he hasn't written nearly as much on BP as a result. Definitely better than any of the MSM polling sources.

...this is pretty much the first political site I read daily.

Every time Barack said "LOOK" I thought it was my dad or Principal about to give me a stern lecture. :(

It's worth noting that education is not a fundamental right. It is true that access to existing public education is protected. However, the Supreme Court has specifically stated that there is no fundamental right to education.

Yep.

I'm used to it that way too as kind of a you're screwing-up-and-not-paying-attention-kind of sentence starter. Last night, I admit I was letting my attention drift frequently, so it was appropriate.

Yeah, and some times it's interesting to me that things have gone this way.

We accept a public educational system that most of us regard as less than awesome for the majority of citizens and assume it's a legitimate governmental service, but most of us really don't want a system of public doctors and hospitals paid for like schools are paid for.

Maybe if companies hadn't started offering health insurance benefits as a way to attract workers when they essentially had salary freezes, we would have simply developed a more extensive system of public clinics and hospitals supported though taxes and more moderate billing. ETA: such a system would probably be about as uneven in quality as the public schools are, but it's interesting to think about how these two areas diverged.

The Supreme Court has said that there is no fundamental right to education under the federal constitution. However, I believe you'll find that many if not most state constitutions do make education, and a free education at that, a right.

I discussed this with a friend who teaches Political Science at the local Community College and it was his theory that this was likely done on purpose by his "people" because an older man (though not as old as McCain) projects confidence, experience, and it's harder for some voters to vote for someone that looks as young as they do. He insists that Clinton did the same thing when he was first running for office b/c of his age.

Me personally? I think my friend has a valid point but I also think that the stress of taking on such a massive job like running for office takes its toll.

I'd agree. I don't think there's ever been a President (in recent history - obviously I can't vouch for Washington et al because they wore wigs) who has not aged significantly during his Presidency, be it four years or eight.

They do always age a lot. Except for Reagan (who was clearly dyeing his hair), they all leave office gray.

Is a right only a right if it's in the Constitution? Hmmm. After all, the Equal Rights Amendment was never passed, but I think most agree that women have rights equal to men.

Yep - and Reagan left with freaking Alzheimer's, so I think he supports the general rule too. ;)

Again, this is definitely an issue where we're all using a different definition of "right."

Legally, something is only a "right" if it is protected or guaranteed by government mandate. However, obviously there is a more 'colloquial' sense that is just as (if not more) important to most. Which one do we want the Presidential candidates to deal with? I'm not 100% sure I know how I feel, to be honest.

I agree Ksig RC. It was primarily a rhetorical question, but we DO have a lot of attorney's and law students here and I do notice that they have a different perspective on many of these issues because of their law oriented mindset. Wikipedia talks about moral rights and legal rights. Both are valid in different situations.

McCain needs to take the advice of the conservative side of the media. Read the end of this article: http://spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=14019, it's not enough to say Obama's radical and talk about the economy separately, he needs to tie them together, and the suggested speech at the end of that article shows very well the kind of things he needs to be saying.

While that may solidify McCain's conservative base, it's not going to swing people over from Obama to McCain. Here is another paragraph from the article:

See, some of us feel like Obama is FINALLY someone who can empathize with us and who FINALLY understands how we feel and sees the world from OUR point of view. That's why he feels like a breath of fresh air to us.