Bush promotes healthcare proposal

President Bush traveled to a Missouri hospital Thursday to press his case that Congress should sign on to his healthcare proposals, including his idea to pay for his initiative by taxing some employer-paid insurance premiums as employee income.

Unlike similar town-hall-style events that the White House bills as “conversations,” the round table at St. Luke’s East hospital had no audience other than about 30 reporters.

“If you work for a company, you get your healthcare free, in essence. It’s part of the benefits package,” Bush told his seven guests, who included several small-business owners and an uninsured waitress. “If you’re a stand-alone person, you pay your healthcare on an after-tax basis.

“In other words, there’s discrimination in the tax code based upon who you work for. It makes it harder for individuals or small-company employees to be able to buy healthcare,” the president said.

Members of Congress have given the idea a cold reception, saying the idea would make little headway toward obtaining healthcare for the 47 million people in the United States who are uninsured and would eventually raise costs for average families.

Bush toured the new hospital, part of St. Luke’s Health System of Kansas City, Mo., to examine its use of information technology, another cause he has promoted. In the emergency room, Bush admired a flat-screen television monitor with a blinking display of patients’ vital signs, procedures and medications.

“Medicine is finally catching up with the rest of America in terms of information technology,” Bush told the assembled doctors and nurses.

In his State of the Union address, the president proposed making health insurance premiums paid by employers taxable to their employees as part of their compensation. At the same time, every family would get a standard healthcare deduction of $15,000 ($7,500 for singles).

That would mean that families with total healthcare premiums less than $15,000 would get a tax break, but those with what Bush has termed “gold-plated” plans would have to pay income tax on the amount over $15,000.

The president argues that his proposal would level the playing field for those without employer-sponsored health insurance, because the standard deduction would be available to everyone. And that would make it easier for more people to afford to buy individual health insurance.

However, many healthcare experts say that the president’s proposal will do little to help most of those who have no health insurance. That is because about half of the uninsured earn so little that they do not file income taxes, so the standard deduction would not help them.

Currently, about 25% of employer health plans cost companies and their employees more than $15,000 a year, meaning that roughly 75% of those with employer health plans would get a tax break under the president’s proposal. But healthcare experts say that those savings could be short-lived; the deduction and cap will be indexed to inflation, whereas healthcare costs have been rising faster than the inflation rate.

Esmerelda Wergin, a waitress at her grandmother’s Mexican restaurant, told the president that she and her husband had been unable to afford health coverage for themselves and their two sons, either through a job or on their own.

“Some jobs offer you health insurance plans, but they cover nothing.... It’s really hard to find one that’s going to suit your family’s needs,” Wergin said.

Bush said the Wergins would save $3,500 in taxes under his proposal, money they could put toward health insurance.

“Rather than have a family sit outside the system ... why not help them afford a healthcare system through making the tax code fair?” Bush asked.

maura.reynolds@latimes.com