President Obama hit the road Wednesday to stump for the ideas he outlined in his first State of the Union address of his second term the night before.
In that address, Obama presented a number of ideas that he challenged Congress to get behind, from early childhood education to gun control. So what are the ten big takeaways from the speech, that could impact your life?
JOBS — Obama touted the progress the economy has made over the last four years, adding 500,000 in the manufacturing sector just in the last three. But he pushed Congress to pass the remaining portions of his American Jobs Act, called for an increase in the minimum wage (to $9), and announced the formation of a trade partnership between the U.S. and the European Union, intended to boost trade-based employment. He also called for investment in science and technology innovation, which he said would create jobs. No word, though, on specific proposals to address persistent black and urban unemployment, however…
MEDICARE — The president said he is ” prepared to enact reforms that will achieve the same amount of health care savings by the beginning of the next decade as the reforms proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission,” indicating a potential willingness to cut costs in the program serving the nation’s elderly, including changing the way the government pays for Medicare services (moving away from “fee for service” billing, whereby doctors charge for every procedure, rather than for the entire “continuity of care,” reducing taxpayer subsidies to drug companies and adjusting the benefits wealthy seniors receive. But the president said he opposes any plan that would cut benefits directly, particularly to poor seniors.
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