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Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Edwards Pushes Health Plan

By Winthrop Quigley
Journal Staff Writer
    SANTA FE— Government can bring down health-care costs with its buying power, by allowing U.S.-made drugs to be reimported from outside the country and by creating new insurance pools, Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards said Monday.
    Addressing several hundred supporters attending a town-hall meeting on health care at Milner Plaza on Santa Fe's Museum Hill, Edwards accused President Bush of siding with prescription drug and insurance companies against the interests of health-care consumers.
    He charged that administration spending on the Iraq war and its tax cuts have deprived Americans of better health care.
    "During the time George Bush has been president, 5 million Americans have lost health care coverage," Edwards said.
    "As best I can tell, his health care plan is 'pray you don't get sick,' '' the North Carolina senator added.
    U.S. Census Bureau data show 44.7 million people were without health-care coverage in 2003, the most recent year for which data are available. In 1999, 39.6 million had no health-care coverage.
    Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Monday in a conference call that Bush's health-care plans will create "a patient-centered, consumer-driven, provider-friendly type system."
    Edwards' presidential running mate, John Kerry, supports purchase of prescription drugs by the federal government on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries.
    The drug benefit enacted last year with Bush's support has Medicare beneficiaries getting their drug benefit through their insurance companies, which purchase the drugs.
    In a joint interview after the town-hall meeting with four reporters, Edwards said insurance companies simply don't have the market clout the federal government has. Insurance companies' drug purchasing for existing commercial and government customers "is not working," he said. "It's not bringing down costs."
    He said that drug costs could be brought down by allowing Americans to buy drugs from foreign countries, since American drug companies usually sell identical drugs to other nations at lower prices than they are sold in the United States.
    The Bush administration opposes drug reimportation.
    Kerry's health plan would also allow small businesses to buy the same insurance available to federal employees by joining government-sponsored insurance pools. He also proposes providing tax breaks to help uninsured Americans buy coverage, expanding Medicaid to cover the working poor and more low-income children and having the federal government pay the cost of a patient's health care that exceeds $50,000.
    The Bush campaign on Monday unveiled a new television advertisement that says Kerry's plan puts "Washington bureaucrats in control" of health care and would cost $1.5 trillion, a price tag developed by the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
    Other analysts have put the cost of Kerry's plan anywhere from about $650 billion to $900 billion over 10 years.
    Edwards said Kerry's health and education plans can be financed by repealing tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans while keeping tax cuts for the middle class.
    Frist said Kerry's plan "will absolutely result in higher taxes on the middle class."
    Bush's proposal would encourage consumers to join health savings accounts, which are tax-deferred savings accounts used to pay for health-care costs. They are available only to consumers who purchase high-deductible health insurance.
    Bush would also allow industry groups, trade associations, religious associations and other groups to form pools and buy insurance collectively. Currently those association health plans are prohibited by state laws.
    Health-care policy analysts have estimated Bush's approach would bring health-care coverage to about 4 million more Americans, while Kerry's approach would cover about 27 million more. Bush's plan would cost about $70 billion over 10 years.