The Debates

I have generally avoided, as I usually do, watching the Presidential candidates debates this year.

I find them incredibly frustrating b/c, as anyone who has ever participated in a debate knows, they are not real debates. They are simply just questions being posed and then 2 minute, or 30 second stump speeches.

I don't know if I am idealizing things, as I seem to remember these exercises in futility as always being somewhat empty, but they seem to have gotten worse.

Last night, the only real answer I heard was actually from Governor Bill Richardson on the question of healthcare.

His response was the only one that provided a specific plan. For every 2 Years of National Service the doctor or nurse provides, they have a year of tuition paid.

This was one of his ideas for the runaway cost of healthcare - i.e. by making it possible for the doctors to avoid going into the practice of medicine at almost 30 years old hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

What seems to happen with every other question is simply that the candidates answer back that yes, it is a problem, and yes, I will do something about it.

On this issue (medical care) for example, every Democrat just parroted back that we need national health care.

Now, I happen to vehemently disagree with this idea, but even if that is your opinion, that is not an answer.

How would you nationalize it? A government insurance co? Regulated Doctors fees for every office visit and procedure?

Government owned hospitals and clinics? Government owned pharmaceutical co's? Government run medical schools?

It all sounds like socialism to me, and a guarantee for the collapse of the quality of medical care.

I'd love to hear responses from my foreign friends about this (i.e. the debates).

I have always heard that the national program in Britain is avoided by all who can afford to do so. i.e. those that can afford private physicians use them exclusively because of the lack of quality of the national program in Britain.