President Obama gave a speech today at the White House that he hopes will get the health care reform bill back on track. I hope it will, too. Despite support (and in some cases, monetary concessions) from hospital groups, pharmaceutical companies, AARP, the AMA and nursing organizations, it seemed that votes on the Hill were slipping into the "No" column due to the CBO analysis that the bill would cost $1 trillion dollars.
Now, a trillion dollars is a LOT of money. But critics make it sound like it's a trillion dollars a year, which of course is just ridiculous. It's a trillion dollars over TEN years, which is a hundred billion dollars a year. It's still a lot of money, but not compared to what we just spent to get the banks back on their feet.
If anyone has health care coverage from an employer they probably know that the cost of this coverage has been going up every year (probably faster than any raise they may have received), and the employers are not eating these cost increases -- they are passing them on to the employees. Anyone who has been laid off from a job and lost their health care, or who doesn't have health care through their employer, knows what a roll of the dice it is not to have coverage. Health care expenses are the #1 cause of bankruptcies.
President Obama has said that 2/3rds of the cost will already be paid for. I know where to find the remaining 1/3rd, which would be about $33 billion a year. In fact, I know where to find more than that. We need a higher gas tax, and we need it now.
Americans put about 146 billion gallons of gasoline in their cars and trucks every year. For many years now the gas tax has been about 18 cents a gallon. When gas was $1 a gallon, this was 18% of the price. Now gas is about $2.50 a gallon, and the 18 cent gas tax is about 7.2% of that. If we were to increase this tax 25 cents a gallon to 43 cents a gallon, we would raise about $36.5 billion dollars a year.
Nobody likes to pay more taxes, but it's high time we increase this tax. For one thing, it would make those who drive gas-guzzlers more responsible for the environmental damage they are causing. It's (unfortunately) not enough to tip the scales toward people getting rid of their guzzlers, but it's enough to help pay for the health care reform we need. Remember when gas went so far up in price recently? Not many people parked their cars and took public transportation, or traded their vehicles for more fuel-efficient models, until gas got up to $4 a gallon. That seems to be where the tipping point is for most people.
When politicians run for office they always run on the promise to cut taxes. I think this is a mistake. We as citizens can't expect more services for less money, it just doesn't make sense. A recent poll said that the majority of people are willing to pay a little more money if they know they would have health care should they lose their jobs. It's time to get health care reform done, and raising the gasoline tax would help pay for it.
