Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels delivered the Republican Response to the State of the Union address that was presented by President Barack Obama. Although the primary focus of his speech was not on health care, he did make some mention of that topic.
The Republican Response to the President’s State of the Union speech is a relatively recent development. According to the website of the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the very first Response by the Opposition Party to the State of the Union Address occurred in 1966.
On January 12, 1966, President Lyndon Johnson presented the State of the Union address. The presentation of the speech was televised. President Johnson was a Democrat. The television networks provided the Republican party with a half-hour slot of time to deliver a response to the President’s State of the Union address.
The first Opposition Response was delivered by Senator Everett Dirksen (Republican, Illinois), and Representative Gerald R. Ford (Republican, Michigan). By 1976, television networks were providing a time slot for the opposition party to make remarks about the President’s address immediately after it was delivered.
This year, President Barack Obama gave the State of the Union Address. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, a Republican, delivered this year’s Opposition Response. You can read his speech, in its entirety, on the Washington Post website.
The primary focus of the Opposition response seems to revolve around the Republican party’s dissatisfaction with the amount of spending that they feel President Obama has done. Somewhere in the speech, Governor Mitch Daniels did mention topics related to health care. Kaiser Health News has put together a list of those quotes. One of the more interesting quotes reads:
“[We] must unite to save the safety net. Medicare and Social Security have served us well, and that must continue. But after half and three quarters of a century, respectively, it’s not surprising that they need some repairs. We can preserve them unchanged and untouched for those now in or near retirement, but we must fashion a new, affordable, safety net so future Americans are protected, too.”
What does “half and three quarters of a century, respectively,” mean? I think he was trying to say that Medicare came into existence half a century, or fifty years, ago. He also could have been trying to say that Social Security started three quarters of a century, or seventy-five years ago. I’m not sure why he didn’t state this more clearly.
I think this quote means that he, and the Republican party that he is speaking on behalf of, feel that the Medicare and Social Security programs need some repairs. I hope that what he is saying is that the people who are currently using these programs, or who will soon be eligible for them, will not have to worry about changes being made to what they will receive.
He followed this by pointing out that “we must fashion a new, affordable safety net” for future Americans, who will need to use Medicare and Social Security someday. It remains to be seen how the Republicans plan on “preserving them unchanged and untouched” while they “fashion a new, affordable safety net”.
Image by DonkeyHotey on Flickr