"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."

Are you kidding me? Are enough of us that stupid to even be worried about electing this clown?

If you have a health insurance through your employer, John McCain's plan will tax that benefit as income. Call your HR dept on Monday and ask how much your company pays for your benefits. Take that amount and multiply it by the federal income tax bracket you're in. That number is how much John McCain will raise your taxes!

I'm aware of that, and it really sucks.

Truth is, I would much rather be able to get that kind of insurance without having to have an employer. Being self-employed has a lot of advantages, but that one factor keeps me out of doing that.

I'll take that one factor and stay self-employed.

Mine is up to 750/mo for Healthcare alone, dental and vision extra...actually I think McCain proposes that the EMPLOYER pays the tax on that, if I heard it right in the beginning.

Chris, I wish I could.

My wife is in the middle of a fairly ugly and risky term of colon treatment.

I was forced to go self-employed prior to that time. Got handed my last check and a good luck.

Scared me shitless, but I got through! It was nearly blue skies as I had made it over the big hump, was capitalized well enough and building nicely. I learned I could do that. Frankly, your posts around that time were one of the reasons I just went ahead and did it.

(glad I did and I learned a ton)

To make a long story short, and keep a few things off a message board. The cost of treatment exceeds what I would have made self-employed for a year. Individual coverage won't cut it as the 24 month ante to get benefits working and lack of risk pools and the ease with which they can get rid of you all combines to essentially trap me at a job until such time as people are healthy enough to take some risk, I save enough to carry that risk individually, or we fix things as a nation.

The bit of risk I was more or less forced to carry, cost me everything. We now rent, own one car, etc...

The good news is that living is extremely cheap, so we can pay the medical stuff outstanding, have some quality of life and save.

Would much rather have done it in MY house, but being able to do it at all means a lot to me.

Having to keep a job sucks. It sucks more when I know absolutely I could be doing my own thing on my terms too.

Be thankful you and yours are not suffering the risk mine are. Save big for when it happens. It's gonna be more than you think. Trust me on that.

Maybe it won't happen and I just had the unlucky draw

Kennewickman: The employer will not pay the taxes, you will. McCain will offer you a tax credit towards your healthcare but it will not be enough to cover your increased tax liability. And the long term effect of McCain's plan would eliminate employer provided benefits all together.

McCain is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

Let's say that somehow the GOP rigs a win for McCain in November. Unlikely, based on polls, gut instinct, and my unmatched ability to see through the media presentation of the election. But humor me, and here's why.

The Congress is and will be Democratically controlled. They would never pass such a tax. A McCain presidency would get nothing done. It can't. Look at the last two years of the Bush presidency. Get it?

Here's a dose of realism. Obama will move to fix health care quickly, and although there will be some discussion in Congress it will pass. Rates will go down. How much better or worse your coverage will be remains to be seen.

The key is that the situation will improve under Obama, and deteriorate under McCain. Not that McCain has much of a chance to win. Lately, he can't keep his positions straight for more than a few hours. He looks old and tired. They put enough pancake makeup on him he looks like a cartoon.

Popular vote:

Obama 52 to 53 percent. McCain 47 percent, maybe 48.
If that happens, it will be a landslide. Why not? Other than die hard Republicans who would never stray from voting the party line, what independent voter in their right mind is going to want to suffer through four more years of this insanity.

"what independent voter in their right mind is going to want to suffer through four more years of this insanity"

Never underestimate the stupidity of the American public.

" Never underestimate the stupidity of the American public."

I have to acknowledge that as true.

However, and this is just my gut, I think it may actually be a landslide in Obama's favor. I think people that are giving credibility to McCain are doing so out of being polite and wanting to guard against being labeled as someone who votes party lines no matter who is on the ticket. They want to say they were open minded to all choices. Great. Me too. Who doesn't want to be that way? I THINK that people who are claiming to be undecided will, when it comes to voting, will go Obama. Then they can say they weighed their options with intelligence or whatever they are clinging to at this point.

Now, I do NOT believe that this is a slam dunk and no work is left to be done during the campaign. But anyone who us genuinely unclear about where each candidate stands on major issues and what their plans are for their respective administrations are just sort of acting at this point. They are just venting frustration with the world as it is today and pretending that McCain presents solutions for the future. But they know he doesn't. Not really. They don't believe it.

Then again, read my first line.

We'll see, I guess.

You make a good point about McCain's health care plan Vitalogy.

Never underestimate the stupidity of the American public.

Or the power that Naomi Klein so astutely described in Shock Doctrine.

I really feel for you Missing. I read that quote in his plan too. It is gonna take a brand new bottom up approach to solve your situation. While I agree on the whole with Andy's assessment, I think that a "lame duck" McCain would be the worst case scenario for you and your family.

Well it's actually better now.

One life lesson is that if you just don't own much, then you can't risk or worry about much!!

Most of my income is liquid right now. Could actually take another big hit and still deal, so that's really a great position all things considered.

It could be much worse.

When we saw it going down, the choices where double down and really fight for it, or punt, refactor life and dig in for the longer term.

I chose the latter and could easily get by on a moderate wage job, or through another serious currency devaluation.

That's also done a lot to relieve the trapped feeling. It's not totally gone, but now at least I don't fear so much, and that's kept exploitation in check.

I didn't realize the leverage people often have over others with this employer insurance thing, until being in that position. That really sucks ass.

What I really want to see is more building here. We need infrastructure and we need production to exist here to pull the economy up. If those things happen, then I know I'll be ok for a lot of reasons.

Longer term, my kids will be ok, and that's a significant worry right now.

If there is more significant wealth generation here, instead of this aggregation, there will be the dollars to manage this crap, and get other core things, like the health care stuff, fixed.

That quote did piss me off. Threw some stuff around when I saw it. McCain and company are just ass-clown, nut-bag, exploit the uninformed hosers.

Vitalogy is spot on too. Spent some time in a classic gaming forum today talking about this stuff. Normally don't do P&R there, but people were talking and worried.

There are a LOT of people still buying into the idea that the wealthy pay enough and that this stuff is our fault for not making better decisions.

It is, but not for the reasons they give. Apathy and the sense of false entitlement and security are the ones I put on ordinary people, not failure to dodge all the raw exploitation the Republicans seem to favor.

You know, that's just fucked. Deregulate, then bitch when we don't managed to out fox the big players. What, are we just cattle or something?

One would think the ordinary American is here to just consume crap and shit cash for the top percenters.

"One would think the ordinary American is here to just consume crap and shit cash for the top percenters."

If one were one of the top percenters, one would think exactly like that. Controlling the top percenters is not an easy problem to solve. The way to do it is to limit their power. It's tough. Money IS power. It comes down to your vote.

The Republicans have set a new standard in hypocrisy. George W. Bush has set a new standard in bad government. This entire problem is just one of many that have been left unsolved. The pendulum is heading back the other way. There's no telling how long it will take to fix the pieces the GOP has broken. The top percenters are not going to go down without a fight. They lost the round in '06. They are about to lose this next round, too, by all reasonable predictions. These last two years in divided government haven't slowed the negative momentum created by the Bush administration since '01. Now the other guys get their chance, and frankly, it seems impossible that they can't do a better job. I look forward to Obama as president. Either he will turn this train around, or the Dem's will suffer in the mid term '10 election and the pendulum will begin another reversal. The masses are fed up with politics, understandably so. I hope for the best, but the GOP has already taken all I've worked for and saved up as I tread water waiting for the changes we need.

Missing, I am glad to hear that you weathering the storm. I think we would all be happier if we just had a blue sky and a steady breeze in our sails again once in a while. This is about far more than just health care, this is about quality of life. Some people will be forced to redefine their personal reality, but on the whole, our country would be a clear winner if everyone could see a doctor.

Or, we could keep approaching it like the financial industry. Wait until the person or bank is almost dead before attempting any preventative measures. Try to find someone who will help them get better for next to nothing. Then as a last resort, use taxpayer dollars to keep them alive for a few more weeks. That seems an awful lot like the way we do it now. What was in the McCain plan that was new?