Most of the questions during last night’s presidential debate dealt with the economy. One of the issues that I find a major part of the economy is health care. Personally, I think that we should have universal health care. But that’s just me.

Anyway, the plan laid out by Barack Obama offers the closest thing to universal health care that we are going to get. Contrary to popular belief, Obama does not propose that the government completely take over health care. He does propose that ordinary Americans have access to *gasp* the plan that our elected representatives have access to — effectively lowering premium prices since private insurance companies would have to compete with the rates offered by this other plan.

Obama also proposes that small businesses of a certain size provide health care coverage. If they don’t, a fee would be charged to help cover the cost of health care. However, a very generous tax credit would be offered to small businesses to offset these costs. Besides, most small businesses would not, in fact, be affected by Obama’s proposed changes.

Obama also thinks that it’s a good idea to make sure, if nothing else, that all children get health care.

John McCain’s health care plan

For the most part, John McCain’s health care plan would be pretty much status quo. He would allow shopping across state lines, and he does say that he would offer a tax credit. However, he would tax employer-provided health benefits as income. While Obama exaggerated this effect by calling it a tax increase, the truth is that (initially) it would result in — at worst — effectively maintaining costs. The problem with John McCain’s plan is that if (and it’s likely) health care premiums rise, the benefit values increase, and so does the income tax on the benefit. Then the law would have to be changed to increase the tax credit. Or it really would be like increasing taxes.

John McCain would freeze (or maybe even cut) Medicare spending as part of his health care. Barack Obama just sort of sidestepped the question and tried to avoid entitlement spending altogether. Of course, if we had universal health care, Medicare would be a non-issue and the whole health care system could be overhauled to be more cost efficient.

I also agree with Obama on his plan to use an energy economy makeover to help fuel the economy.

As part of a news conference that addressed everything from the War on Terror to ANWR drilling, President Bush took some time out to focus on the economy. He took aim at rising oil prices, as well as mentioned some of the measures (including interest rate cuts that are likely to continue tomorrow) that his administration is taking to alleviate problems in the economy. He also briefly mentioned food prices inflation.

But he, as expected, refused to say whether or not we’re in a recession. But he did acknowledge this: “It’s a tough time for our economy.”

And he made sure to blame the Democratic-run Congress for the problems.But I’m not sure that President Bush’s solutions for the economy would be that great, either. Mostly, I was annoyed with his take on alleviating energy costs as part of economic stimulus.

He wants to drill in ANWR for more oil, and boost corn ethanol production. Neither of these things is particularly good for the environment, nor would they stimulate an energy economy that would benefit most Americans.

• It would take at least a decade and billions of dollars to get anything significant out of ANWR. With American ingenuity and innovation, those billions and that ten years could be put to better use by developing viable renewable energy sources and improving existing hybrid car technology. (Or even getting cars of internal combustion.)
• Corn ethanol doesn’t really help matter much, either. It mainly results in subsidies for Big Ag, while being damaging to the environment. And, if we’re putting corn into ethanol, it makes it kind of hard to eat it — which means food prices continue to rise.

Besides, neither of these solutions is immediate. The talk is all of economic stimulus, but, really, we’re in a natural downcycle. And the growth we have been experiencing the last few years has been kept going through unnatural economic means and was unsustainable (obviously).

The government keeps touting short-term economic stimulus solutions (like the tax rebate), but none of them will ultimately work. Instead, we should focus on getting through this time while changing our mindset for the future.

Do you think President Bush’s energy plans would help the economy?