John McCan Wants the Health Care Industry to be More Like the Banking Industry

John McCain wants the health care industry to be more like the banking industry.

This from a McCain article in Contingencies, the magazine 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.

(Hat tip to TPM and Krugman)

We've had some interesting discussions over at USNews.com's opinion section about McCain's jarring transformations, most recently from deregulator to economic populist.

But this quote -- in an article no doubt submitted to the magazine months ago -- makes stark how absurd is the latest iteration of John McCain.

As Josh Marshall puts it:

...let's admit that you could only be surprised by this statement if you were willfully ignorant to what McCain and his key advisors believe. Remember, his top economics advisor is former Sen. Phil Gramm, the legislative architect of the banking and financial services deregulation that led to the current crisis. ... The only thing jarring about the statement is the degree to which it has been overtaken by events as McCain now tries -- a la Palin the Earmark-Killer -- to rebrand himself as a Mr. Wall Street oversight and transparency when he's been pushing deregulation for 25 years.

So the question now is: What breathtaking whopper does the McCain campaign deploy to get out of this one?

Comments

[bacaangel]

McCain Says One Thing and THEN Votes The Opposite! When you hear McCain talk, think -- Wizard of Oz.

http://www.salon.com/env/feature/2008/09/20/john_mccain_environment/?source=newsletter

[tedbear]

Yeah, allow more competition in the healthcare industry so more companies can rip off more of the people. The healthcare industry needs to be revamped and put in with Medicare under the guise of the Social Security Administration. Medicare is 40 years old or so and it has always worked because the federal gov. controls it. McCain and the Republicans will not help anyone except the greedy rich. Vote for the party that helps you, not the 2% of Americans that ony need help from McCain/Palin to keep ripping you off.

[Sciguy]

I liked one of the last lines in the article. It said:

"Parents who don’t impart to their children a sense of personal responsibility for their health, nutrition, and exercise—vital quality-of-life information that political correctness has expelled from our schools—have failed their responsibility."

I'm not sure what politically correctly stuff that's been expelled from school he's talking about, but if it's sex ed.... Well, OK, sex is healthy and is also great exercise, but nutritious? I ain't a-goin' there...