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Health
By Fawn Johnson

HHS Secretary Leavitt said today Congress should give states the tools to expand health insurance access to Americans, rather than trying to develop universal health insurance at the federal level. "The place to solve it is where the innovation is taking place, and that's in the states," he said in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. He likened the situation in health care to the debates over welfare reform in the mid-1990s. "The states came forward in a bipartisan way," he said. "They said, 'Here are the problems we have to have solved. If you want us to take care of it, give us the choice, get out of our way, give us the tools, and we'll get it done.' " Leavitt said government should heavily subsidize health care for elderly and poor citizens who cannot afford a basic plan. "Every other American deserves to have a choice of basic plans," he said.

Leavitt said Congress should eliminate the "blatant discrimination" between those who have employer-provided health insurance and those who buy health insurance in the private market. To correct that imbalance, President Bush has proposed making employer-provided health benefits part of taxable income and providing tax benefits for individually purchased health care. The proposal has made little headway on Capitol Hill. Leavitt also said the federal government should create a network in which states can "wrestle" with the problems of how to balance the costs of providing health insurance with the size of the benefits.

Leavitt said government should be the "organizer" and not the "proprietor" of health care. But, he noted, many lawmakers disagree, wanting to expand the entitlement aspects of government-run health care, citing proposals to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program. "The solution isn't to incrementally hook one more car to the train of government-run health care," he said. He called on advocates for a market-based healthcare system to come up with a plan. "Those who understand the dangers of the trend need to engage," he said. "You can't beat the candidate with no candidate. You can't beat a plan with no plan." Leavitt's outline of healthcare policy included "electronically connected medical records," medical standards, and incentives for providing low-cost quality care.