Toomey and Sestak Debate at Health Care Town Hall

Last night, I watched two candidates running for the senate seat in Pa face off on the health care debate at Muhlenbergh College in Pa. Pat Toomey and Joe Sestak are two candidates who want to oust Arlen Specter from his senatorial seat in 2010. Pat Toomey is in the lead in the Republican primary, according to a Rasmussen poll. Pat Toomey's popularity spread like wildfire among Republicans, and then Sen. Arlen Specter like the opportunist that he is, ran to the Democrats like he was scared. Joe Sestak is challenging Arlen Specter in the Democratic Primary. The two both agree that health care reform is needed but disagree on how to fix it.



When Sestak spoke during his opening statement he looked like he was auditioning for Broadway. Sestak is against Tort Reform. He claims that it is only a very small percentage of the health care problem. Sestak said, competition is important but he doesn't want to open up the borders so that citizens can cross state lines to buy health insurance. As the debate moved along Sestak started with this dramatic sob stories, and then looked like he was going to cry. To me, he was acting like a drama queen. It was like he was trying to gain the sympathy vote, or something. Sestak was there defending and promoting Obama's health care bill.



Toomey said that we need to change the way we pay for health care, that access to health care is a problem, and that escalating costs is also a problem. Toomey said that big government mandates, huge new taxes on both workers and employers is not the correct way to fix the health care problem. Toomey is pro Tort Reform. Toomey is positively for opening up the borders so that there can be more competition among insurance companies and citizens will be able to cross state lines to buy health insurance policies. This type of competition would almost certainly force the health insurance companies to lower the costs related to health care. In Pat Toomey describing U.K.'s health care, he said that the U.K. has commissions who decides who gets health care and who doesn't. And, the commission has stated that one person's life for 6 months is worth $23,000. That is exactly how much Britain will spend on a person's health care over a 6 month period. Plus, Toomey stated that a huge number of Canadians cross over the border to the United States to gain better access to health care.



Sestak was like a guy in an empty suit. He wasn't very inspiring at all. He was boring. His answers seemed like they were in some type of code. Toomey was straightforward. In my opinion, he was on fire and nailed every question. Toomey, a former business owner, even made the connection of how Obama's health care bill would affect small business owners.



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You can view either part or the whole video of the debate here.