Health Care

	CAP: Ask the Expert - The Health Care Crisis: 47 Million Can't Afford to Get Sick
	AUFC: What if?
	AUFC: Abby
	Families USA: Bush vs. Kids
	AUFC: Part D

"We've got the best health care system in the world. And we need to keep it that way. We need to keep it that way by keeping the private market strong, by resisting efforts that are happening in Washington, D.C., to say the federal government should be running health care."

- President Bush at the Executive Office Building, 1/28/04

The Bush Administration has allowed our health care system to be taken hostage by the insurance industry, who determines what they cover, when they’ll cover it, and how much they’ll pay with little pushback allowed. Access to health care and quality of services is increasingly based on our ability to pay.

The conservative solution to the health care crisis has been to push the system into the private market – and the impact has been alarming. In 2001, 41.2 million people were uninsured. By 2006, that number had jumped to 47 million. What’s worse, 8.7 million children are among those uninsured.

Even those who do have insurance aren’t adequately covered. 24% of insurance plans don’t properly cover prescription drugs, doctor visits, medical tests, surgery, or catastrophic medical conditions; or the deductible is too high. Half of all Americans who file for bankrupcy claim illness or medical bill as the cause -- and 3/4 of the medically bankrupt have health insurance.

Employers are increasingly shifting the cost to their employees in the form of higher premiums, deductibles, and copayments. Workers pay an average of $2,227 more for health insurance through their job today than they paid in 2001. 9% of businesses stopped offering health insurance altogether from 2001-2007.

President Bush said that government intervention would hurt the “doctor-patient relationship.” Rather than fighting for lower prescription prices for seniors, Bush said that negotiating prices with pharmaceutical companies “impedes competition.” Experts project that Medicare could have saved $30 billion a year through such legislation.

He also said that expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program was a move toward “socialized medicine,” and vetoed legislation that would have given four million more children access to a pediatrician, rather than an emergency room.

President Bush and his conservative allies in Congress have created an “every man for himself” health care legacy. Unfortunately for the American people, the conservative failures of health care are a matter of life and death.