President Bush is making an encouraging step in the right direction to improve health care by giving working families a tax break. Bush proposed a standard tax deduction Tuesday for health insurance in his State of the Union speech.

The president said this reform will help out families who do not receive health insurance through their jobs and that the tax break would allow such families to purchase health insurance.

President Bush then illustrated this with a family of four making $60,000 a year and said this tax deduction would save such families close to $4,500.

According to a study by the Urban Institute, a non-partisan economic and social policy research organization, 44 percent of people without health care don’t have it because they don’t want to spend the money or because they don’t sign up for government-run health plans even when eligible.

Bush’s idea is to create a fund to help the uninsured buy coverage by giving them a substantial tax deduction.

The problem with that, of course, is there is no way to make sure that money is spent on health care. Opponents of this proposal need to have faith that the American people are smart enough to make a decision that is in their best interest.

Even if the money is misspent by some, Bush is still taking the initiative toward developing a more fair and equal health plan, and that’s what we need in America – equality.

Many argue that we need to expand government-supported health care, such as Medicaid. That’s like trying to put the entire population into government-funded housing. It’s just not going to work.

Economists have long argued that U.S. health insurance encourages many of us to ignore costs and the tax code links insurance to employment. The president wants to begin cutting that link by providing the same tax benefits to those who buy insurance on their own.

When it comes to equity, Bush is right in his proposal to the American people to provide equal tax benefits to everyone who buys insurance, whether through an employer or on their own.

Under his plan, everyone would receive the same deduction: $15,000 for families and $7,500 for individuals, and that helps create a desperately needed balance.