McCain wants to use the banking industry model to "fix" health care

This is getting heavy play on the web, and you might have already seen it. But if you haven't, you need to. It seems that McCain wrote an article for the September/October '08 issue of some trade magazine for actuaries (WTF?), and, well, you just need to read it. Here's the money quote:

"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."

In this one sentence, McCain is:
1. Advocating possibly the worst health care idea ever;
2. Asserting that deregulating the banks has proven to be a smart policy; and
3. Claiming at least partial authorship of that policy ("...as we have done over the last decade...")

Check out what Steve Benen has to say, and click through the links to see what others are saying.

I don't like to make predictions, but this one looks huge to me. It's like Gerald Ford's saying in 1976 that eastern Europe wasn't under Soviet control -- maybe worse, because that was a dumb statement made in the heat of a debate. Stay tuned.

BTW, I'm traveling today, so this is my last post until at least late tonight.