The question to Senator Kerry was about the discrepancy between the cost of his proposal for health care reform and what Bush said it would cost. Senator Kerry started out saying that two leading national news networks disagreed with Bush's assesment of Kerry's plan.
After stumbling around saying that the networks were not credible to quote, Bush said we should look to the Lewin Report for the facts.
Ok, let's do that.
Bush claims the Lewin Report says the Kerry plan will cost $1.2 trillion.
Sort of.
Bush also claimed the Lewin Report showed the Kerry plan would add over 20 million people to government controlled health care.
Ummm, not exactly.
Here is what the report actually says:
<snip>
The Lewin Group analysis centered on two key questions: 1) How many people who currently lack health insurance would become covered under each candidate's program? * As a baseline, The Lewin Group projects that 49.5 million Americans will lack health insurance coverage by 2006, absent intervention of some kind (2006 was used as the benchmark for when the proposed reforms of each candidate would be implemented). * According to The Lewin Group analysis, the Bush plan would cover 8.2 million new people. The Bush plan would reduce the number of uninsured to 41.3 million people, a reduction of 17%. * The Kerry plan would cover 25.2 million new people. The Kerry plan would reduce the number of uninsured to 24.3 million people, a reduction of 51%. 2) How much money would each program cost the federal and state governments, consumers and other financial contributors over the 10-year span following implementation in 2006? The analysis demonstrates that: * Federal net expenditures would increase by $227.5 billion under the Bush plan and by $1,249.0 billion under the Kerry plan. * State net expenditures would decrease by $19.9 billion under the Bush plan and by $343.5 billion under the Kerry plan. * Employer health spending under each plan would decrease -- a drop of $4.7 billion dollars under the Bush plan and $52.1 billion under the Kerry plan.
Link:
http://news.corporate.findlaw.com/prnewswire/20040921/2... So yes, the Kerry plan would cost the federal government $1.249 trillion ($1,249 billion). But it will also save each state an average of $342.5 billion. With 50 states that comes to $1.715 trillion in savings total, which means an actual savings of almost $500 billion as a nation.
As far as Bush's claim that the Kerry plan would add over 20 million people to government controlled health care, the Lewin report does show that the Kerry plan will result in 25.2 million new people getting health insurance (as opposed to 8.2 million by Bush). Is Bush saying that's a bad thing? He tries to make it sound that way by saying it is "government controlled" health care (booga booga), but Senator Kerry has made it clear that his plan does not call for a government run program, as does the Lewin report.
I posted this last night and someone challenged whether the report meant the net state savings was for all 50 states together or an average for each of the 50 states. I called the Lewin Group this morning and the woman I spoke with said she would get me an answer.
If not, my point still stands. The findings of the report still show that Senator Kerry's plan covers more new people, leaves fewer people without health insurance and does more to reduce the burden on states and employers than the Bush plan. And Bush's plan of expanding private sector insurance through tax cuts just gives us more of the same with no incentive for private insurance to improve. In fact, it is a boone to private insurance companies.
And, unlike those not-credible network reports (even Bush knows the "news" we are given is BS), the findings of this report have the Presidential seal of approval.
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