Paul Krugman's blog turned up a gem for health care wonks: Republican candidate John McCain wrote in Contingencies magazine, published by the American Academy of Actuaries, that he wants to make health care more like banking. Here's the exact quote:

I would also allow individuals to choose to purchase health
insurance across state lines, when they can find more affordable
and attractive products elsewhere that they prefer. 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.

What next? Bailouts for health care providers?

On a more serious note, McCain's proposal to eviscerate state health insurance regulations would be a huge setback for efforts to create insurance plans that provide decent preventive benefits and non-discriminatory care. What we need in the health insurance market, as in banking, is strong national regulation that sets a high bar for every plan that gets sold to the American people. And since we've never had national regulation of insurance companies, the next best thing is to allow states to lead the way. Instead, McCain would allow insurance companies to flee to any state that had no standards, and then peddle their wares nationwide. That's a prescription for disaster.