WP: Bush Plans to Broaden Health Care

[kskiska]

Proposal to Reach Millions Echoes Ideas Outlined in First Term
The budget President Bush unveils next week will propose spending an extra $140 billion over 10 years to expand health coverage to millions more Americans, his top health adviser said yesterday. But many of the proposals are familiar ideas that never made it past the talking stage in Bush's first term.

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said Bush wants to spend more money to enroll children in government-funded health programs, give tax credits to individuals and companies that purchase insurance and build more community health centers.

(snip)

"That would be a historic step forward to make that much progress within the decade," he told reporters in a leisurely conversation in his new office at HHS headquarters, as he offered a rosy preview of the health-related components of the budget in advance of Monday's release of the actual numbers.

But many of the ideas Leavitt sketched out have been offered by the Bush White House in the past, eliciting little interest on Capitol Hill and deep skepticism about how many more Americans would be covered.

About half of the $140 billion appears to represent Bush's plan to provide refundable tax credits for the purchase of health insurance. Rolled out during Bush's first year in office, the credit would cost $70 billion to $90 billion over a decade, according to administration figures.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61677-2005Feb3.html

[lovuian]

1. Anything to keep this system afloat as it sinks

and goes into chaos!!!

[Davis_X_Machina]

2. Tax credits are pointless...

...if you don't have the income to make the purchase of whatever is being credited, and if the credits are not fully refundable.

This will extend insurace coverage to about twelve additional people.

[TahitiNut]

3. Tax credits usually favor the wealthiest, not those with low incomes.

That's the Bushoilini way: get rid of poverty by making the poor die faster.

[Rose Siding]

4. Millions have lost health care- they have to wait 10 yrs to get it back?

I like the idea of community centers in theory, but since it's bush I envision a dumpy building with a neon sign: "Pharma-R-Us"

[FloridaPat]

5. I had to stop my health insurance when it got up to $700 a month.

What good is saving 15% of taxes on that amount? Rip off again. Actually, since I've been unemployed, I don't pay taxes at all. Right up there with the rich