McCain on Health Care

Now that John McCain, in a day I never thought would come, has been effectively nominated for President, he has begun his campaign against the Democratic Party, especially those he accuses of waving "the white flag of surrender" (translation: committing treason).

McCain's speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, February 7, 2008, hit, largely effectively, most of the Repub's hot button issues. He quoted the renowned conservative philosopher Edmund Burke and pledged allegiance to Ronald Reagan. He defended the Iraq war and increasing troop levels there. He attacked abortion rights, supported extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, knocked earmarks- and advocated a line item veto, thereby urging an expansion of executive power. He advocated defense of the United States by dependence upon state militias (a/k/a Second Amendment), opposed Iran, Islamic extremists, and supported Israel, the last as safe a position as it is sensible.

And he pledged fealty to "free market" health care, warning that the Democrats will "offer a big government solution to health care insurance coverage" while he would pursue a market-based remedy. That's right- the free market, which has produced in the U.S. A. a, health care system in which:

-as of 2003, spending amounted to 15% of the Gross Domestic Product, considerably higher than in most industrialized countries, including Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Germany, France, and Canada;

-over 40 million citizens have no health insurance;

-according to the World Health Care Organization, is (modestly) better than that in Slovenia, Cuba, Brunei; also Slovakia, Libya, and Ghana and other nations- but unfortunately worse than in France, the U.K., Canada, and 33 other countries.

Fortunately, the Democratic nominee can benefit by campaigning on health care to defeat Senator McCain in the fall. After all, it is an issue he knows little about, cares little about, and is wrong about.