February 15, 2006

REID: BUSH HAS LOST HIS CREDIBILITY ON HEALTH CARE

Washington, DC – As President Bush travels to Ohio today to promote his misguided Health Savings Accounts, a new study released by MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber shows that HSAs will increase the number of uninsured by 600,000 Americans. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid released the following statement on the president’s loss of credibility on health care:

“It’s simply not credible for the president to say he’s serious about addressing the health care crisis when you look at his record and his policies. After designing a prescription drug plan that favors HMOs and drug companies over seniors and then botching its implementation, the president is now threatening seniors’ access to care with his budget cuts to Medicare. Democrats have offered a prescription for change to fix the Medicare drug bill; the president has ignored the problem.

“The president’s most recent recycled health care idea will make the health care crisis worse. His plans for Health Savings Accounts will increase the number of uninsured Americans, make health care more expensive for millions of Americans and do nothing to help the over 46 million Americans who don’t have health care coverage today. It’s just not credible to call it a solution. Democrats know that together, America can do better to cut health care costs and increase access to quality health care for all Americans.”

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Bush HSA Proposal Will Increase the Uninsured by 600,000. In a new study released by MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber, President Bush’s HAS proposal is shown to actually increase the number of uninsured. “…the number of uninsured persons is projected to actually rise by about 600,000 from these proposals. Once again, this is because the decline in employer-provided insurance of 8.9 million persons is larger than the resulting increase in non-group insurance of 8.3 million.” [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2/15/06]

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