George Bush recently described his diagnosis for our broken health care system. In his radio address this weekend, Bush said that the current system “unwisely encourages workers to choose overly expensive, gold-plated plans,” driving up the overall cost of coverage and care. Bush is proposing that, if an employer-provided health care plan is too generous, employees should pay income taxes on these health benefits.

Question: Do you know anyone with a “gold-plated” health plan? I don’t. Have you ever heard of anyone with a serious medical condition having a good experience with their private health insurance?

The president’s horrible proposal is based on an old conservative myth. The conservative myth is that the problem with health insurance is that it encourages people to use too much health care. Conservatives believe that the problem is too much insurance, raising overall costs.

Whatever grain of truth there is in this conservative myth, it is clearly not the problem America faces. The real problem is that millions of people in this country have no insurance coverage at all. Lives are ruined every day because of this. And those of us lucky enough to have insurance live at the mercy of a horrible system that gives us measurably worse care than citizens receive in most other industrialized countries. We need universal health care.

Aren’t conservatives supposed to be against taxes and against government regulation and for personal freedom? Don’t you think it’s odd that Bush wants to try to use government regulation to discourage you from buying an insurance plan he doesn’t like? Don’t you think it’s odd that, after cutting taxes in a time of war (so that the wealthiest few could lower their tax burden), Bush is demanding a tax on “overly expensive” and “gold-plated” employer-provided insurance?