As someone who cares deeply about the issues facing our country, I found the first half hour of the debate deeply frustrating. I wanted to hear substantive debate on the key issues facing this country - the financial crisis, healthcare, energy, etc. While Obama gave measured and thoughtful responses to the questions, McCain repeatedly returned to canned attacks and games of guilt by association. When McCain finally started addressing the issues - beginning with healthcare - I went from frustrated to terrified.

McCain's healthcare plan is just, plain scary. He has based his approach on dismantling the traditional employer-based system of health care and pushing consumers into the individual insurance market, under the assumption that this will increase competition and save costs. In fact, this would likely raise premiums for many and reduce access for all but the healthiest people as insurers avoid people with pre-existing conditions and risk pools shrink.

One of the few moments during last week’s debate when Sara Palin actually addressed a substantive policy issue was during the discussion on healthcare. Unlike previous policy comments by Palin the result was a coherent statement – it was also terrifying. She confirmed the McCain stated view that we need to open up health care to (and this is a direct quote) “more vigorous nationwide competition as we have done over the last decade in banking.” It is just unbelievable to me that they are still making this argument in the wake of Bear Stearns, Fannie, Freddie, Lehman, AIG and Wachovia. They must be reading different newspapers than I am.

Last night Sarah Palin did an admirable job refusing to answer the questions she was asked and instead sticking to the repitition of scripted, high level responses. Interestingly for healthcare wonks like me, healthcare was one of the few areas where she actually engaged on a policy question with any sort of specificity - and the response served to reinforce the misguided nature of the McCain / Palin policy. The following clip is pretty enlightening...

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1185304443/bctid1832907349

A recent study by Families USA shows that healthcare premiums for working families in Pennsylvania have increased by almost 90% since 2000. The average cost for family health coverage is now $12,513. At the same time wages are stagnating and companies are shifting an ever greater portion of insurance costs onto their employees. McCain's plan would significantly exacerbate this problem by eviscerating the employer sponsored model of health insurance and forcing people into the more expensive individual insurance market. Here is an article that does a good job describing what McCain's plan would do http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/29/125427/457?new=true

By contrast, Obama has set forth a proposal that would help alleviate this burden on working families while also expanding coverage for children and the uninsured. The following blog does a good job of contrasting this plan to McCain's http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-bernstein/guts-brains-and-health-ca_....

Over the course of the last few days there has been much handwringing on Capital Hill and in the media about the current financial crisis, and the lack of oversight and regulation that precipitated it. While this has largely obscured the ongoing debate about healthcare, it has brought into stark relief the disastrous consequences of McCain's philosophy of less oversight and unfettered markets. Here is what McCain has to say about his healthcare plan:

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation. Consumer-friendly insurance policies will be more available and affordable when there is greater competition among insurers on a level playing field."

Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of the Children's Defense Fund, recently described in an interview the catestrophic impact McCain's healthcare policies would have on healthcare coverage for children. Scary!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-tucker/childrens-defense-fund-fo_b_1...

The death toll in the financial sector is rising. Bear, Lehman, Fannie, Freddie and Merrill are all gone and AIG and Washington Mutual are in critical condition. Yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had its largest single day decline since September 11. There are myriad and complex reasons for the current crisis - and it would be simplistic to lay the blame with a single political party or politician. However, what the current collapse of the financial system certainly highlights is a fatal flaw that runs through much of John McCain's political philosophy - a fanatical belief that the market can solve every problem.

A stark example of this is McCain's healthcare policy. McCain health policy has three primary goals:

1) Dismantle the employer-sponsored insurance program, pushing people into a less regulated and more expensive individual insurance market
2) Reduce regulation and oversight of health insurers by allowing them to sell across state lines

As the media mires itself in manufactured controversies over lipstick, one of the most important issues facing working Americans is getting short thrift. The U.S. healthcare system is in a state of crisis. We spend too much, get too little in terms of quality and outcomes, and – under the past 8 years of Bush/McCain policies – have increasingly advantaged insurers, drug companies and other special interests at the expense of working people.

This election represents a fundamental choice on healthcare because both candidates are giving us blueprints to reorganize America's health care system and those blueprints are very, very different.

McCain has based his approach on dismantling the traditional employer-based system of health care and pushing consumers into the individual insurance market, under the assumption that this will increase competition and save costs.