I have no idea how many people even visit this site any more (besides Russ).  However, I have been posting my opinions to President-Elect Obama like crazy on Change.gov.  Suddenly, it occured to me (mere moments ago, in fact), that I should also post those comments here.  Well, I’m sorry that you have missed several of them that I now cannot remember (though the first two were just versions of my letter to Barack already posted on this site).  Here is the one I wrote today:

On Health Care Reform:

I believe this should be included in the economic stimulus package.  That may seem like over-reaching but this is a critical issue and it is the one Republicans will fight the hardest against– if you make adequate health care available to the rural South, the Republicans will lose their last stronghold in this country.  So, Health Care must pass when this new administration is at its strongest (during its first 100 days) and with the wide mandate the American people have given you to fix the economy.

I would like to see a radical change in health care, with the Federal Gov’t picking up all or most of the costs.  Individual employers would still facilitate the legistics of connecting people to their providers but then would be reimbursed by the Gov’t for all/most of the cost.  Employees would pay nothing.  The system would look effectively the same from the average person’s point of view: they would keep the exact same provider with the exact same services facilitated by their employer in the exact same way.  Except they will see more money in their paycheck.

As there is no additional cost to them, employers could then be expected to extend COBRAs indefinitely (or at least for a significant amount of time) until former employees found other work.  Chronically unemployed people could get their insurance directly from the State/County.  They would have access to all the same providers as we currently do but the local Gov’t would act much like our employers do.  As the sole purchaser of health insurance, the Fed could force costs down.

While, some of that would take time, where this would be an immediate stimulus for the economy is on the employer’s end.  Freed of the huge burden of health care costs, employers could spend that money on job creation, program development or expansion.  In fact, they could be mandated to do so (rather than on executive bonuses) for X amount of time (eg 24 months).

I think this could be sold to the American people: though it is a huge change, most of it occurs behind the scenes (ie health care functions exactly the same way on a day to day basis for most of us).  American’s like familiarity.  The change they will see will be the increased money in their checks and the increased health care benefits for the unemployed.  And they will understand the value of putting money in employer’s pockets.  In fact, big business would probably love the idea.

So, the only question is… can we pay for it?  Well, if you don’t change your mind on repealing Bush’s tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy, that would help.  But, I’m not an economist, so I’ll leave that up to you folks.

Below the fold, I have include a copy of the letter I will be sending to our future president.  It contains two long-standing suggestions I have for him.  I have no idea if he will ever see it but, at least now somebody will.  As I have not yet sent the letter, suggestions are welcome (though likely ignored). Continue reading Dear Mr. President:...

Remarkably, it appears that Sarah Palin is actually dumber than we thought.

I guess the fun just never ends.  Perhaps, she can run in 2012 on a platform of inviting the president of Africa to join NAFTA.

i want to give a tip of the hat to Scout Finch at DailyKos for finding this one.

what will they say about this election and why John McCain lost? 

Well, here is my answer (entirely unchanged from when I wrote it on October 19th): Continue reading When the history books are written……

BARACK OBAMA WINS!!!!!

CNN declares President Obama the winner at 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time exactly on November 4th, 2008.

For more info on how the night went (and how accurate I was), check out the newly named “Final Outcome” tab at the top of the page.  I will keep updating it as the last few races & CA ballot measures are decided.

According to Nate Silvers at FiveThirtyEight, there has been some tightening in the national polls after all, bringing Obama’s lead to about 5.4% on average.  As this matches almost perfectly my prediction on October 16th that “Obama’s lead will drop to about 5 points just before election day,” I would love to agree with him. 

However, I haven’t really seen the same tightening.  When I look at the last 7 days of polling (again 9 polls, although 4 of them done by CBS for some reason), I find Barack’s average lead to be 8.55, which is exactly in range with the last averages I did.  In fact, the average of those 3 sets of averages is 8.63.  So, the polls I look at find no change in Obama’s lead at all.

For the record, my polls have included: CBS, Pew, CNN/Opinion Research, FOX/Opinion Dynamics, NY Times, ARG, Diageo/Hotline, NBC/Wallstreet Journal, USA Today/Gallup, and many others.  In other words, all the big name polls, I believe.

So, why the difference?  I have no idea but I have to concede that I have nothing of the tracking capacity or head for stats that Nate does.  So, perhaps he has access to more studies than I do or he looks at variables I don’t.  Either way, I don’t think it’s worth debating because the national poll numbers aren’t that important.  State-by-state polling is much more important at this stage in the race and these polls are clearly showing there is now tightening in some state races.

Taking this tightening into account has caused me to scale back my prediction for Obama’s margin of victory from 364/174 to 353/185.  I shifted Missouri to the McCain column.  I think Indiana is probably out of reach but Arizona is now in the Indiana range.  Florida and North Carolina are also now less certain but I still include them in the Obama column because I think voter excitement and early voting are on his side.

So, my amended prediction for Tuesday:

Obama           353

McCain           185

For my full predictions, check out my “Final Predictions” tab at the top of the page.