She performed much like she did when running for Govenor. Folksy. Don't get bogged down in details. Speak in a way that resonates with the people. Last night that was the women that crushed the Old School Alaska Republicans in 2006.
The one thing that she did not rebut Joe on was the McCain Health Care Plan. I really wanted to hear about that since if it gets anywhere will crush me financially.
This country is going to be at "war" for a while in various spots on the Earth. Nobody is stopping anything on that. We may change the venue, but it will continue. So war is a non issue. Taxes are always going to be happening. Sometimes they will be less and then they change and are more. They will always be here, so another non issue. Or rather symantic issue. Looking back over my 20 plus years of paying income taxes the huge variety of tax changes have either taken or left a few hundred dollars each April. Do I really care about a few hundred dollars as a critical part of electing a president? No. I car about the things that affect thousand of dollars of my money.
BC/BS of Alaska would charge me between $6,600 and $8,000 a year for an indivual policy. McCain's plan would give me $2,500 to cover part of that cost leaving me to come up with the remaining $4,100 to $5,500. Of course McCain thinks that the free market and open competition for the government money will lower the premiums. That is a big risk considering how well the free market is doing today. The rules that let mortgages be turned into stocks is still out there. How about insurance policies as stocks? Anyone?
The other thing that I have to consider is that I have a child support agreement that mandates that I provide insurance for my daughter. It is cheaper for me to do through work than her mom under her mom's self employed insurance. However, we do not have shared custody and my daughter is her mom's dependant and not mine. I will never see the $5,000 family tax credit is what this means. So the State of Alaska requires me to buy insurance for the kid which from BC/BS will be a $12,000 premium for 1+1 family coverage. With the $2,500 tax credit I now have to come up with $9,500 out of my own pocket. Now if I was able to get the lowest cost of $6,600 the difference for single coverage and 1+1 family is $5,400. The child support rules allow me to deduct this difference from the support I pay for my kid. I pay $9,800 for support a year on average so the deduction will lower that to $4,400. You know what that means? My ex will loose her house since she uses part of the money for the mortgage at the begining of the month and then coasts the rest of the month on her invoice payments she gets from her clients.
We could change and her mom could get coverage for her, but then that is more money out of my pocket since the rules require the deduction to now become an addition to the child support. Screwed either way.
And if there is an opt out part of the plan and my employer keeps providing insurance the McCain plan will tax my benefits for health care since they will be considered income. That will be $11,500 in additional income for me. Another tax bracket and less money in my pocket. I know that I said that taxes have only been a few hundred dollars in differences, but this is a principle issue with McCain saying that he wants to lower taxes on the middle class, but here is a tax increase. That hypocracy doesn't fly with me.
Biden did a good job of putting the debate on this issue out there and Sarah didn't take it. That is typical of her style when she knows she can't win on something. Move on and hope people forget.
I guess the one hope I have is that the McCain Health Care Plan will have to go through congress and the senate and it is so bad for the people that it will be much like the Social Security reform that W kept bringing up when elected to his second term. How is that reform going these days?
Of course the insurance market may look at the Government Cheese and lobby to make this happen and then screw everyone over and not cover anything.
Right now the insurance system is only "broken" for people that are not full time employed. Guys like me just have to deal with the deductible creap up every year. Other than that there is nothing wrong with how my insurance works.
