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Senior Citizen Politics
Media Already Awash with Opinions on Bush's
Yet-to-Be-Delivered Speech
Polls show health care affordability is top
worry of the public
January 23, 2007 – Proposals President Bush is
expected to make tonight in his State of the Union address are already
drawing much reaction, according to KaiserNetwork.org. The center piece
of the speech will be proposals the White House says will make health
insurance more affordable. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) told the Associated
Press the proposal "won't help the uninsured, most of whom have limited
incomes and are already in low tax brackets." Stark is chairman of the
House Ways & Means Committee's subcommittee on Health. Many Democrats,
however, were more hopeful.
 President
Bush to Emphasize Four Domestic Policy Areas During State of the Union
Address, Including Expansion of Health Insurance
Lawmakers and health policy experts on Monday
offered mixed reactions to a Bush administration proposal that would
offer federal tax deductions of $7,500 for individuals and $15,000 for
families who acquire health insurance on their own or through an
employer, the
AP/San Jose Mercury
News reports (Freking, AP/San Jose Mercury News, 1/22).
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Senior Citizens Not Likely to Hear Much on Retiree
Programs in State of Union
Focus of speech will be health care insurance but not
supplemental insurance
January 23, 2007 – The State of the Union address
by President George W. Bush tonight will focus on a health care program
providing tax incentives for Americans to purchase health insurance but
a spokesperson said yesterday that it was not clear if this would
include supplemental health insurance purchased by millions of senior
citizens to fill the health care gaps in Medicare. No advance notice was
provided to indicate the president may address changes in either Social
Security of Medicare. Read
more...
Read more
on
Politics for Senior Citizens |
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The proposal, which President Bush announced on
Saturday in his weekly radio address, would for the first time levy an
income tax on the value of employer-sponsored health insurance in some
cases. Currently, employees are not taxed on the value of their
employer-sponsored health insurance. Under the proposal, individuals and
families with employer-sponsored health insurance plans worth more than
the proposed allowable deductions would pay income taxes on the
difference.
The deduction would be available to all individuals
and families who purchase health insurance, regardless of the value of
their policies or whether they itemize deductions on their tax returns.
For U.S. residents who receive employer-based health insurance, the
deduction would be offset by the cost of their coverage (Kaiser
Daily Health Policy Report, 1/22).
Bush is expected to promote the proposal in his
State of the Union address Tuesday evening (AP/San Jose Mercury News,
1/22). The proposal would pose no net cost to the government over 10
years, Katherine Baicker of the White House
Council of Economic
Advisers said Monday (Pender,
San Francisco
Chronicle, 1/23).
Lawmaker Reaction
According to the AP/Mercury News, the proposal "appears to be shaping up
as a tough sell in the Democratic Congress." House Ways and Means
Health Subcommittee
Chair Pete Stark (D-Calif.) said, "Under the guise of tax breaks, the
president is pursuing a policy designed to destroy the employer-based
health care system through which 160 million people receive coverage"
(AP/San Jose Mercury News, 1/22).
Stark said the proposal "won't help the uninsured,
most of whom have limited incomes and are already in low tax brackets.
But it will hurt middle-income Americans, whose employers will shift
even more cost and risk to their employees" (Pugh,
McClatchy/Miami
Herald, 1/23).
House Energy and
Commerce Committee
Chair John Dingell (D-Mich.) said, "The
administration is attempting to drive people into the unregulated
individual insurance market that has been known to deny coverage for
common illnesses such as cancer and diabetes" (Johnson/Vaughan,
CongressDaily, 1/22).
Senate Finance
Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said some moderate
lawmakers might be willing to consider a variation on the Bush proposal,
CQ HealthBeat
reports. "I applaud the president for putting health care coverage at
the fore of his State of the Union address," Baucus said, adding, "I
want to look closely to see whether his proposal will help cover the
uninsured and help to meet the needs of those with real medical
expenses" (Reichard, CQ HealthBeat, 1/22).
Baucus said his top priority is expanding health
insurance for children (AP/San Jose Mercury News, 1/22). Sen. Ron Wyden
(D-Ore.), who has proposed
legislation
that would require individuals to obtain health insurance, said, "I want
to make it clear that my door is open to work in a bipartisan way, but
it's got to be a comprehensive overhaul," adding, "You can't start by
hitting the middle class that way and not take care of the (health
insurance) marketplace."
Senate Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Edward Kennedy
(D-Mass.) said, "I am concerned that taxing health benefits may
undermine the good coverage that many Americans already have, while
inadequate credits will do little to make health care more affordable
for those who are struggling to pay their premiums now."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said, "It's a good
idea. It's a partial solution."
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
said, "Too many people today who don't get health insurance through
their jobs are unfairly priced out of the market because of government
interference," adding, "The president is right. The tax code should be
changed to help them" (CongressDaily, 1/22).
Industry Reaction
Karen Ignagni, president of
America's Health
Insurance Plans -- which has not taken a position on the
proposal -- said, "With the president coming forward and making health
care such a major issue on his priority list, I think progress is
definitely possible." Ignagni said the proposal might increase cost for
some unionized employees (AP/San Jose Mercury News, 1/22).
Randel Johnson, vice president of labor and
employment benefits at the
U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, said, "We're open-minded and looking at it."
JoAnn Volk, a health care lobbyist for
AFL-CIO,
said the proposal would have an adverse effect on unionized employees
with good health benefits and would not address health care cost. "It
sounds like the same bad policy," Volk said (CongressDaily, 1/22).
Additional Reaction
Karen Davis, president of the
Commonwealth Fund,
said, "Ninety-five percent of the uninsured wouldn't get a significant
amount of money from this deduction because they earn so little" (Luhby,
Long Island Newsday,
1/23). Davis said the proposal would not significantly reduce the number
of uninsured U.S. residents, adding that it is difficult for residents
of certain states to obtain affordable non-group health insurance if
they have pre-existing medical conditions.
Paul Fronstin, director of the health research and
education program at the
Employee Benefit
Research Institute, said the proposal would mean "the end of
employer-based coverage as we know it." Under the proposal, employees
"would get the same tax breaks on their own as their employers, so
employers may view this as a reason to stop offering the benefit,"
Fronstin said (Fahy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1/23).
Diane Rowland, executive vice president of the
Kaiser Family
Foundation, said some people with health insurance policies
worth more than $15,000 do not necessarily have "gold-plated" plans, a
term Bush used in his speech. Rowland added, "A single cap can mean very
different things in different places of the country" (AP/San Jose
Mercury News, 1/22).
Larry Levitt, vice president of the Kaiser Family
Foundation, said employers might reduce benefits to keep the value of
the health insurance policies within the allowable deduction (Long
Island Newsday, 1/23). Levitt also said health care "is rising on the
public agenda," adding, "Our polls consistently show health care
affordability as the top personal worry of the public. Political leaders
are tapping into that worry" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1/23).
Paul Ginsburg, president of the
Center for Studying
Health System Change, said Bush's proposal "is a way for the
president to jump into the discussion of coverage expansion, which he
was completely out of." Ginsburg added, "The entire proposal in its
current form won't fly" (CQ HealthBeat, 1/22). Ginsburg said the current
system gives employers an incentive to offer "Cadillac coverage" because
they can write off all of their employee health care spending, which
"contributes to rapidly rising health care costs." However, Ginsburg
said that older or sicker people could have trouble obtaining non-group
coverage under the Bush proposal (McClatchy/Miami Herald, 1/23).
Second Proposal
In related news,
HHS
Secretary Mike Leavitt on Monday released additional details on a Bush
administration proposal that would give states greater flexibility to
use federal money to expand health insurance to their residents, the
Los Angeles Times
reports.
The proposal is a second component of the
administration's health care plan that Bush is expected to outline in
the State of the Union address. It would redirect as much as $40 billion
in Medicaid funds that currently go to hospitals and other providers for
care of uninsured and low-income patients (Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles
Times, 1/23).
The
New York Times
reports that the proposal would cut Medicaid payments to public
hospitals and other safety net providers by $3.9 billion over the next
five years (Rutenberg/Pear,
New York Times,
1/23).
The proposal is designed to give states incentives
to develop plans to expand health insurance coverage (Los Angeles Times,
1/23). The state plans would be required to define which residents need
coverage, outline a basic health insurance policy and establish a
subsidy that would help uninsured residents obtain coverage, Leavitt
said (Carey, CQ HealthBeat, 1/22).
Leavitt said Bush "wants to partner with states,"
adding that he expects at least 12 states to propose health insurance
reforms this year (Los Angeles Times, 1/23). Leavitt added, "We want to
be able to redirect federal payments away from institutions and to needy
individuals. Rather than perpetually paying bills for the uninsured,
it's better to help them buy health insurance." Debbie Bachrach, a
deputy commissioner in the
New York State
Health Department, said the funding cuts would affect
hospitals that "serve some of the lowest-income, most vulnerable
patients" (New York Times, 1/23).
Broadcast Coverage
Several broadcast programs reported on the Bush administration's
proposal:
>> APM's "Marketplace":
The segment includes comments from Robert Laszewski, a health policy
analyst, and Len Berman, an economist at the
Tax Policy Center
(Wicai, "Marketplace," APM, 1/22).
● Audio of the segment is available
online.
>> NPR's "All
Things Considered": The segment includes comments from
Melissa Block, host of "All Things Considered," and Julie Rovner, a
health policy correspondent for NPR (Block/Rovner, "All Things
Considered," NPR, 1/22).
● Audio of the segment is available
online.
>> NPR's "Day
to Day": The segment includes comments from Luke Burbank,
host of "Day to Day," and Rovner (Burbank/Rovner, "Day to Day," NPR,
1/22).
● Audio of the segment is available
online.
>> NPR's "Morning
Edition": The segment includes comments from Rovner; Bush;
Fronstin; Chip Kahn, president of the
Federation of
American Hospitals; and Thomas Miller, an economist at the
American Enterprise
Institute (Rovner, "Morning Edition," NPR, 1/23). In
addition, "Morning Edition" reported on themes, including health care,
that Bush is expected to address in his State of the Union speech
(Greene, "Morning Edition," NPR, 1/23).
● Audio of the first segment is available
online.
Audio of the second segment also is available
online.
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