Bush promotes new health plan on visit to Missouri

LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo. -- In town to push his proposal to expand access to health insurance, President Bush on Thursday praised advanced patient care technology at a local hospital.

Bush toured the Lee's Summit campus of the Saint Luke's Health System, which is less than two years old and features an array of high-tech systems that closely track patient care, even from half a state away.

In one room, Bush studied a wall of computer screens that included medical information on every patient currently receiving treatment in the hospital's emergency room, including the X-ray of a girl who had dislocated her elbow.

In another room in the intensive care unit, hospital officials showed the president a high-powered camera above a bed that would allow physicians anywhere to keep an eye on the patient's progress. A similar system allows hospital employees to watch patients at ICUs in other Saint Luke's system hospitals, including one in Hays, Kan.

"Medicine is finally catching up with the rest of America in the use of technology," said Bush, who has advocated for greater use of computerized health records as a way to bring down costs and reduce medical errors.

Afterward, Bush attended a round-table discussion in one of the hospital's conference rooms with a group of small-business owners and employees, hearing their concerns about paying for insurance.

In his State of the Union address Tuesday, Bush proposed taxing employer-financed health-care benefits after a deduction of $15,000 for families and $7,500 for individuals. The deductions would also apply to people buying their own insurance plans.

The White House estimates about 80 percent of workers with health insurance would see a tax cut because of the change. The other 20 percent would see a tax increase if their insurance was worth more than the deductions.

Bush defended the plan Thursday, saying it would "level the playing field" between small businesses and large businesses, which typically get a discount because of their size and help more people afford coverage.

"If you work for a company you get your health care for free, in essence, because it's part of your benefit package," he said. "If you're a stand-alone person, you're paying for your insurance on an after-tax basis. There's discrimination in the tax code based on who you work for."

The Missouri Democratic Party joined other critics of the plan, saying it wouldn't help reduce the millions of people living without insurance and could encourage employers to limit or drop high-quality coverage.

"You don't make health care more affordable by increasing taxes on middle-class families that work hard and currently have good health care coverage," said Jack Cardetti, the state party spokesman.

Sherwin Carroll, president of the Missouri-Kansas State Council for the Service Employees International Union, said the poorest people will have to use any tax savings they receive for other living expenses, not insurance.

"We know tax cuts don't help the general public," Carroll said. "It gets President Bush around the real issue, which is universal health care."

Bush dismissed similar concerns from Democratic opponents in Congress as "pure politics."

"If people in Washington are serious about dealing with the uninsured, this is a serious idea for them to consider," he said.

As an example, he pointed to Dan Jones, a St. Louis computer engineer and one of the round-table participants, who said he's been without insurance since dropping his individual plan when premiums got to $400 a month.

"That $4,800 (a year's worth of premiums) is a lot of money," he said. "That's money that could go toward a car or a house."

Bush said the plan would save Jones more than the cost for an individual insurance plan.

"Here's a classic case, a young guy in the marketplace priced out of the individual market," he said. "The plan helps him."