on health care

The new proposal for health care by the Bush Administration is just foolish. It is foolish because it depends on insurance and insurance still leaves a lot of people out of the loop. And it's foolish because there is a lot easier way to enable people to get a tax break on medical costs: Remove the 7.5 percent deduction from health costs on the 1040 Schedule A. It makes more sense than giving people a $15,000 tax deduction. That would help more people on the lower end of the scale than the president's proposal. He doesn't seem to understand that most people have real problems with health costs and they get no deduction for them because of that limit. Even insurance usually doesn't take them over 7.5% of their adjusted gross income. I think government programs such as those in Europe are the only solution to our problems. Maybe the governors will take a major step in this direction in the bell wether states and force the federal government to take that step, too.