THE STATE OF THE UNION is divided. In this moment, that's a very good thing.
President Bush's State of the Union address was interesting on its face for some of the points he made on domestic policy, if only because they seemed designed as concessions to a Democratic-dominated Congress.
He acknowledged the need for a stronger domestic energy policy. He established goals for energy conservation, and for immigration policy that "welcomes and assimilates new arrivals." And in perhaps the biggest concession, he acknowledged the "serious challenge of global climate change."
But given the rest of his speech on foreign policy, the domestic concessions seemed more like the treats he handed out before passing around the less-appetizing fare: the need to increase troop deployment in Iraq and to increase the size of the armed forces by more than 90,000 troops.
The reaction on the floor was deafening in its lack of enthusiasm. And later, in the Democratic response, it seemed clear that come this morning we will hear something we have missed in the last few years of State of the Union addresses: debate and disagreement.
In addition to the expected vote in Congress against further troop deployment, we expect to hear this administration's policies challenged, questioned and debated. That, more than anything, will be the best thing for the state of our union.
The health-care proposal Bush announced is sure to take up much of that debate.
We hope that before his health-care solution takes hold, he'll have enough health insurance to get his hearing checked.
Because he is totally tone-deaf on the issue of health coverage for Americans.
His proposal, designed to level the playing field of health-care coverage between the insured and the uninsured, is based on assumptions so divorced from reality and so far from fixing the system that the best hope we have is that it will be dead on arrival in Congress.
The plan, simply, is to create a standard deduction of $15,000 for anyone purchasing health care either privately or through their employer; this is supposed to serve as a tax incentive for the uninsured to buy private health insurance. Some families will get slight tax breaks; others either will have to pay a higher tax bill or change their health plan to a less expensive one with fewer benefits.
Bush reasons that just as the tax code gives incentives to people to buy homes rather than rent, he wants to similarly offer incentives to uninsured people to buy health coverage.
Here's where he's deaf to the reality of the uninsured:
Many, if not most, of the 47 million uninsured in this country don't opt out of health care because they choose to; they are uninsured because they can't afford to buy health coverage on their own. Most of them won't be affected at all by the $15,000 standard deduction, since they pay no taxes to begin with. This also conveniently dismisses those who have pre-existing conditions that make health care either impossible or impossibly expensive to get.
Bush is implying that Americans are irresponsible in their use of the health-care system and that "gold plated" plans - those costing more than $15,000 a year - drive up insurance premiums and shut out the poor.
The reality is that for most, being uninsured is a terrifying condition, not a "lifestyle choice."
As it stands, the president's proposal is the imperial equivalent of saying "Let them eat aspirin." *
