Bush's Health Plan Called Smart Politics; Critics See a 'Gimmick'
WASHINGTON — When President Bush's critics would charge that the administration's healthcare policy -- which emphasized tax-advantaged health savings accounts -- was tilted in favor of the rich, supporters had an easy answer. They would point to a costly White House proposal to provide poor families with tax credits toward the purchase of medical insurance.
Now, that response is no longer available. After making no progress winning congressional approval for the 10-year, $74-billion credit, administration officials have quietly revamped the measure in ways that would sharply reduce its costs and thereby offset the price tag for the White House's proposed expansion of health savings accounts.
Some analysts see smart politics behind the design of the administration's latest healthcare package, which Bush announced, with little detail, in his State of the Union address Tuesday.
"They have hit some really important themes, they've solved some political problems and, if it were to pass, it wouldn't cost much," said Joseph Antos, a health policy expert with the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
But the proposal for more tax breaks to promote the accounts, along with a much narrower tax credit to help provide medical coverage for the poor, seems certain to gall White House critics, who were organizing Wednesday against the president's plan.
"Like his Social Security privatization fiasco, President Bush's health savings accounts are a gimmick that will only make a bad situation worse," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told a Capitol Hill rally.
Health savings accounts, which have long been favored by conservatives and won congressional approval in 2003, are designed to get individuals to play a bigger role in shopping for healthcare with the hopes that they will make more cost-effective choices.
The idea is that by coupling a bare-bones, high-deductible insurance policy with an account into which people can deposit money tax-free and withdraw it for medical expenses, individuals will have a greater financial stake in getting reasonably priced care.
The accounts are "an opportunity for people to
Most elements of the administration's latest package are not new. Even sympathetic observers, such as Antos, think the plan stands little chance of passage during what promises to be a contentious midterm election year.
