From an article written by John McCain and published in the current issue of the journal of the American Academy of Actuaries:
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.
I’m starting to look forward to the debates.
At Salon, Joe Conason writes,
Now that we’re all about to take on hundreds of billions or perhaps a trillion dollars in new public debt to redeem the nation’s super-smart corporate financiers, there is one thing I hope we can expect in addition to postponing the apocalypse. Will they all please shut up about the wonders of the unfettered free market and the horrors of big government?
The die-hards will not shut up, of course. I just dropped by Lew Rockwell to see if there were any lights in the attic. Nope. They will all go to their graves believing that free markets solve everything.
Going by Memeorandum, right-wing bloggers aren’t saying much about the financial crisis. Today the leftie blogs are all over it. The top three concerns of rightie blogs are (1) Charlie Rangel said something nasty about Sarah Palin; (2) Sandra Bernhard said something nasty about Sarah Palin (she’s a standup comic, people! that’s what they do); (3) liberals hate God.
Yesterday there was some shrieking from the righties about the bailouts and how taxpayers (i.e., them) are getting soaked. There was not a glimmer of recognition from any of them that they had anything to do with what caused the financial crisis. They sounded like juveniles who had a party that trashed their parents’ house, and now Mom and Dad are telling them they have to clean it up and do without an allowance. Poor babies.
Speaking of Sarah Palin — Kos posts Palin’s favorability trajectory. Enjoy.
Democrats are better for the economy than Republicans. The record is clear. I especially liked …
1) Roosevelt (1933-45): +5.3%
2) Johnson (1963-69): +3.8%
3) Carter (1977-81): +3.1%
4) Truman: (1945-53): +2.5%
5) Kennedy (1961-63): +2.5%
6) Clinton (1993-2001): +2.4%
7) Nixon (1969-75): +2.2%
8) Reagan (1981-89): +2.1%
9) Ford (1975-77): +1.1%
10) Eisenhower (1953-61): +0.9%
11) Bush (1989-93): +0.6%
12) Bush (2001-present): -0.7%
13) Hoover (1929-33): -9.0%
Looks like a pattern to me.