Thursday, October 14, 2004
Long time no blog
Well, I've been bloody working lots, instead of having time for this, so I'll play catch up soon; but I'm giving myself a break, to watch the third and final debate, after extended periods of virtue in the library.
So, first note, Bush just said "The Al-Qaeda", doesn't Al-Qaeda already include an article? I don't so much criticise, as notice it, Arabic remains a mystery to me, and it'd be churlish to mock Bush even if I am right.
So, I thought that Bush was less impressive, but not by a big margin: Kerry did not kick ass.
Both made jokes, Bush more of course, he got a laugh for calling Kerry's assertion, that Bush said once that he didn't think about where Bin Laden was, "one of his (pause) exaggerations." He made a rubbish joke (you pay, they go spend) on Pay As You Go, which he called "Paygo". He used that opportunity to say "middle class", seemingly to break Kerry's monopoly on the phrase: it seems to me to be a mistake. He could go and try to win that argument, otherwise burying it would seem better.
Kerry started his response on gay marriage by saying "We're all God's children." This is clever, Bush didn't mention God in his, and so Kerry gets the religious high-ground, as it were, on this. He then talks about people being gay because that's how God made them. Later when they talked about their faith, Bush played down the idea that he was pro-Christian in an anti-everything else way, while Kerry portrayed himself as driven by faith.
Bush says that health is expensive because third parties buy it, not consumers. What makes the third parties particularly not cost-minimisers? Also, don't consumers choose the premiums, which constitute this price that's increasing.
Kerry got asked how he was going to pay for his health plan, given Bush saying that he couldn't. He dismissed that on the basis that news networks said Bush was lying, and then spent the actual answer responding to Bush's attack ads, by saying that his plan expanded choice massively for people. Bush started saying that the news networks were a bad source, and stopped midway saying "Never mind." as a joke, which fell pretty flat. He then went on to say that government would take over, and that government sucked. Kerry responded saying that the plan he was offering was actually private.
Kerry said as an attack on border control being rubbish "now we have people from the Middle East coming across the border", to me that sounds just plain racist.
Anyway, I'm off to bed. This is notes not anything coherent: more will follow.
So, first note, Bush just said "The Al-Qaeda", doesn't Al-Qaeda already include an article? I don't so much criticise, as notice it, Arabic remains a mystery to me, and it'd be churlish to mock Bush even if I am right.
So, I thought that Bush was less impressive, but not by a big margin: Kerry did not kick ass.
Both made jokes, Bush more of course, he got a laugh for calling Kerry's assertion, that Bush said once that he didn't think about where Bin Laden was, "one of his (pause) exaggerations." He made a rubbish joke (you pay, they go spend) on Pay As You Go, which he called "Paygo". He used that opportunity to say "middle class", seemingly to break Kerry's monopoly on the phrase: it seems to me to be a mistake. He could go and try to win that argument, otherwise burying it would seem better.
Kerry started his response on gay marriage by saying "We're all God's children." This is clever, Bush didn't mention God in his, and so Kerry gets the religious high-ground, as it were, on this. He then talks about people being gay because that's how God made them. Later when they talked about their faith, Bush played down the idea that he was pro-Christian in an anti-everything else way, while Kerry portrayed himself as driven by faith.
Bush says that health is expensive because third parties buy it, not consumers. What makes the third parties particularly not cost-minimisers? Also, don't consumers choose the premiums, which constitute this price that's increasing.
Kerry got asked how he was going to pay for his health plan, given Bush saying that he couldn't. He dismissed that on the basis that news networks said Bush was lying, and then spent the actual answer responding to Bush's attack ads, by saying that his plan expanded choice massively for people. Bush started saying that the news networks were a bad source, and stopped midway saying "Never mind." as a joke, which fell pretty flat. He then went on to say that government would take over, and that government sucked. Kerry responded saying that the plan he was offering was actually private.
Kerry said as an attack on border control being rubbish "now we have people from the Middle East coming across the border", to me that sounds just plain racist.
Anyway, I'm off to bed. This is notes not anything coherent: more will follow.
Comments:
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Third party payers can't minimize costs when they're not deciding what to purchase - try taking a kid to a candy store, let him buy whatever he wants under his candy insurance policy, and then try to minimize costs - not easy. Health savings accounts are a great step forwards on getting this system in better shape - a much better approach than nationalization/socialisation.
-Ken
-Ken
# posted by 
: 3:54 am
: 3:54 am
I suspected that I was wrong to pick him up on this point, so thanks Ken, you're probably right that costs aren't minimised right now. On the other hand, there's no way that I trust Bush to produce a settlement whereby Americans pay less for their drugs... See the policy on Canadian imports, and that ridiculous lie about not being sure that the imported drugs would be safe, after the congressional panel.
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