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Guests: Scott Braddock, editor of The Quorum Report and Igor Derrysh, writer for Salon.com
Part 1
We talk to Scott Braddock in Texas. He is the editor of The Quorum Report.
We start with a discussion of the Nevada Caucus and the debate on Wednesday evening.
Bloomberg has been improving his poll numbers by primarily spending a lot of money on advertising. He had spent more than $300M plus. But last night, he was attacked by the other candidates on stage. While his campaign so far has demonstrated his staff’s competence. However, last night, he proved weak in his approach, and had no good answers to the criticism.
In Texas, early voting is in progress, though the turnout has been relatively light. Because there are several candidates, it may be that voters may believe that their particular choice might drop out of the race prior to election day, and are reluctant to commit at this time. This may indicate a very large turnout on election day.
Part 2
We talk with Igor Derrysh, who writes for Salon.com about universal health care proposals in the United States. He cited studies that showed that the cost of health care in the US is high, with about 30% accounted for by the administrative costs of private health insurers. He compared this to the costs of the Canadian health care system. To have universal health care funded by the government, along with private insurers, does not solve the problem. The improvements that we have seen as a result of the ACA is because of Medicare and Medicaid expansion.
Our second topic of conversation was the Susan Collins campaign, which is struggling. Part of this is her unpopularity due to her votes on impeachment, and her vote to confirm Kavanaugh. She is currently unpopular with younger women in Maine, who see her vote as a betrayal of the “moderate” stance in previous votes in the Senate. She is now seen as an arm of McConnell. Most of the money that is contributed to her campaign is from out-of-state, not Maine. She is currently running closely with her likeliest Democratic competitor.
