Mr. Nader’s remarks will cover a broad range of issues, both national and state-wide. Mr. Nader was the first presidential candidate to pledge to end the destructive practice of coal strip mining and mountaintop removal mining. This practice continues to endanger the ecosystem of Eastern Kentucky. Further, a 2004 report by the Courier-Journal found Kentucky to be among the nation’s sickest states. Kentuckians die at a rate of 18 percent above the national average. The Nader/Gonzalez campaign maintains that this alarming rate is compounded by the lack of a National Single-Payer Health Care system. While Obama and McCain offer health care plans that would enrich private insurance companies at the expense of tax payers, the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign favors a system with private delivery and free choice of hospital and doctor. A 2008 Kentucky health issues poll found that healthcare issues were the third most important item to Kentucky voters, only coming in after the economy and the war in Iraq. The theme of the rally, "Open the Debates," reflects the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign's call for inclusive, democratic Presidential debates. Right now, they are limited to the candidates from the two corporate parties. The debates are controlled by the so-called Commission on Presidential Debates, a private corporation which was created by the Democratic and Republican Parties in 1987, which Walter Cronkite called an "unconscionable fraud" because the CPD format "defies meaningful discourse."