Health Savings Accounts

Health Savings Accounts

January 31, 2006

“The White House has indicated that Mr. Bush will propose tax deductions for out-of-pocket medical expenses, rules to encourage the use of health savings accounts and incentives for small businesses across the country to band together and buy health insurance, exempt from state regulation." [New York Times, 1/29/06]

The Facts:

• Bush’s consumer-driven health care proposal is based on the same principles as his disastrous Medicare prescription drug bill, which has resulted in chaos for seniors and bigger profits for the insurance plans and the pharmaceutical industry. His own administration has had to intervene to try to straighten out the mess its Medicare plan has created.
  
  
• Health care isn’t a commodity like rice and soybeans to be bartered on the open market. If you’re in the emergency room with chest pains, do you want to guess what tests you need, or do you want your doctor to decide what tests you need?
  
  
• Americans cite health care costs as the number one factor threatening their personal economic standing and the economic standing of the nation as a whole. They’re right – health care costs are at a record high – accounting for a record 16 percent of the nation’s GDP in 2005 – and the number of Americans without health insurance is at a record high of 46 million. But the President's proposals won't contain costs or expand coverage – instead, they will provide even more help to wealthy people who already have coverage.
  
  
• 86 percent of Americans say they want fundamental health care reforms, not the short-sighted and counterproductive proposals put forth by the President.
  
  
• Bush’s consumer-driven health care proposals are as wrong-headed as his Social Security plan, which – after months campaigning for the plan – 72 percent of Americans concluded was a bad idea. Americans are likely to draw the same conclusion about his health care plan.

Warrantless Domestic Spying

"The terrorist surveillance program is necessary to protect America from attack." – President Bush [1/26/05]

The Facts:

• Any call from al Qaeda or another terrorist organization should be wiretapped. Period. We believe the President already has the authority under existing law to conduct such wiretaps. The President should use every tool available to him within the law to protect Americans and fight terrorists. If he thinks he needs more authority, he should ask Congress to change the law – not break it.
  
  
• That’s how our Constitution works – it provides the checks and balances necessary to protect our democracy from an imperial presidency. But this President doesn’t seem to think that these rules apply to him.
  
  
• He tells the American people “just trust me.” But through his authorization of torture, lawless detentions and warrentless wiretaps on U.S. citizens, he has broken that trust and shown no respect for the boundaries of executive power.
  
  
• Not only is the President conducting these warrantless searches in violation of the law, he has lied to the American people about it. Equally troubling is the fact that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and General Michael Hayden both lied to Congress about the existence of the program. The administration has an opportunity to explain itself at next week’s hearings. We hope that it does so with candor and respect for the law.