Getting Specific: Kerry On Medical Care
For better or worse, John Kerry is almost surely going to be the man with the chance to oust Bush from the White House. It's going to start to get difficult to tell what is real about Kerry and what is Bush war-chest spin.
One area where there should be ample contrast between the two candidates is in health care. Kerry's platform can be found on his website, but his December speech in Iowa lays it out reasonably well without going into the specifics.
Donkey Rising has a great piece today on why health care is such a boogeyman for the GOP in the upcoming election. It's not hard to figure, really. They passed a hugely expensive bill that doesn't help anybody's health costs. This means:
- They can't tout any new program. They've played their hand already.
- Fiscal conservatives are deeply troubled by the plan's costs
- Seniors overwhelmingly disapprove of the plan
Guess what? Those are three huge problems for the GOP. First, they can't be a moving target at all. They recently passed a bum bill and then they touted it hard as a victory. It will be a duck for John Kerry to shoot at all campaign long. Second, it is a blatant and transparent giveaway to insurance and pharm companies, at a time when this Administration has something of a bad image for being a conduit for blatant and transparent giveaways to corporate interests. So the public is deeply suspicious about it, not to mention the the fact that a lot of Bush's supposed ideological base thinks it is insanity.
Finally, remember, seniors vote. They vote their ass off. And seniors hate the Bush plan, overwhelmingly.
So, basically, the one large domestic policy "triumph" they can point to, other than the reduced taxes, is this bum bill. Huzzah!
10:37:06 AM 
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