State of the Union
President Bush will be focusing on domestic issues during his State of the Union speech tonight, but the war in Iraq will loom large over the address. Bush reportedly will talk about reducing America's oil dependence (haven't we heard that before?) and making health care affordable (another talking point without substantive action on the part of the president).
So what's his health insurance plan? The anti-tax president (at least for big-salaried folks) wants to tax health insurance that we get from our employers as income. That's a big tax on the middle class, although a lesser burden on the wealthy. But then there would be a tax deduction for those with health insurance, suposedly offsetting the taxable income. But it never seems to work out that way for the middle class.
It's going to take some persuading to bring the public around to the president's plan. But maybe that's the idea: Keep the status quo by offering a plan that is DOA.
The president's handlers say he'll ask that Americans cut their usage of gasokline by 20% by 2017. Bush thinks that can be done by using more alternative fuels, including ethanol.
This is from an AP story: "The president is proposing to set the amount of ethanol and other alternative fuels that must be blended into the fuel supply at 35 billion gallons by 2017, up from 7.5 billion gallons in 2012. He also wants to expand the standard to include not just ethanol but a wide range of oil alternatives, such as biodiesel, methanol, butanol and hydrogen," said Joel Kaplan, White House deputy chief of staff.
Comments
At least Bush is acknowledging that there is a health-care problem. That is a step in the right direction, I suppose. But it seems like every proposal that comes out of this White House, whether it's an energy plan, Medicare drug benefits or Social Security privatization, seems designed to make lots of money for certain segments of the economy. So this plan will have to be closely scrutinized. At least he doesn't have a rubber-stamp Congress anymore.
As for alternative energy, I hope there's a bit more substance there than just talking about ethanol. Until we figure out how to make ethanol from cellulose instead of corn kernels, it's not going to be even close to an answer. We also need to be tightening our fuel-efficiency standards. What's the point devoting so much effort to finding alternative fuels just so they can be wasted in mammoth SUV's? We are falling way behind most of the industrialized world in that regard.
Posted by: Mike D. | January 23, 2007 11:10 AM
If Bush really wanted to lessen America's oil dependence, we should never have gone to Iraq.
Posted by: SAL FERNANDEZ | January 23, 2007 12:28 PM
So what's his health insurance plan? [...]But it never seems to work out that way for the middle class.
The plan is worse than smoke and mirrors-- embracing the plan would weaken the existing system, without proposing anything good to take its place. (Obsidian Wings and Washington Monthly have good discussions of it.)
Posted by: ScottM | January 25, 2007 4:49 PM
Robert Reich did a brief review of Bush's health plan for NPR. He said it's a step in the right direction in that it will separate health coverage from employment (something that's not really brought out in the news coverage). But it doesn't take the next needed step to separate health coverage from private insurance.
When you think about it, the goals of private insurance will always be contrary to the goals of universal health coverage. Private insurance is in the business to make money. They make money by selling insurance to healthy people, not by covering sick people. So the sooner we stop depending on private insurers for health coverage, the better.
I am intrigued by Obama's recent proposal for universal coverage, and intend to give that a closer look.
Posted by: Mike D. | January 25, 2007 5:55 PM
and sadly,..the insurance industry along with the financial institutions, have an enormous amount of "pull" that will always show up during the primaries,...they get their candidates every time,...and with both parties beholdin',..for so many years,they acually WRITE the banking and insurance laws that congress votes on!...First,get big money out of politics,only then will we get good government.
Posted by: jaun rapido | January 26, 2007 7:16 PM