Health Care Tax Credits, Medicare Rx Drug Benefit Reportedly Among Initiatives Backed in Bush’s State of the Union Address

President Bush will call for a prescription drug benefit for Medicare beneficiaries and tax credits to help unemployed workers purchase health insurance during his State of the Union address on Jan. 29, the Washington Post reports. As part of his domestic agenda, the Post reports, Bush will propose $190 billion to "revive" the Medicare reform proposal that he unveiled last summer. The plan included a prescription drug benefit, increased participation from private health plans, "looser" regulation of the health care industry and "special help" for patients with large medical bills. Although both parties consider Medicare reform a "leading priority," lawmakers have disagreed on the cost and structure of a prescription drug benefit. Addressing the problem of the uninsured, Bush will propose individual tax credits to help unemployed workers purchase health insurance -- a key component of an economic stimulus bill that the House passed last month. Bush may also "seek to expand health care tax credits to broader groups of people," a proposal "long advocated" by many Republicans but opposed by many Democrats. The Post reports that Bush will, "once again, say he favors" patients' rights legislation -- an issue that "bogged down" last year amid "partisan disputes" over differences in bills passed in the House and Senate. Bush aides recently have met "about half a dozen times" with aides to Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), co-sponsor of the Senate bill, for "tentative talks" on a compromise. According to a Democratic source, "it remains uncertain" whether Bush and Kennedy can resolve key differences in their versions of the legislation. Bush will deliver his State of the Union address to Congress Jan. 29 at 9 p.m. ET (Allen/Goldstein, Washington Post, 1/28).