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Skriven 2007-04-02 23:31:44 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0704022) for Mon, 2007 Apr 2
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President Bush Participates in Meeting on Health Savings Accounts
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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary April 2, 2007

President Bush Participates in Meeting on Health Savings Accounts The
Roosevelt Room

˙ Video (Windows) ˙˙Presidential Remarks
˙˙Audio ˙˙En Espa_

˙˙˙˙˙ In Focus: Health Care

11:24 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: A cornerstone of good health care policy is to make sure
that patients and docs are in charge of medical decisions. And therefore,
one of the objectives of this administration has been to encourage the
expansion of products like health savings accounts. And today I have met
with some small business owners, some employees of companies that have
provided health savings accounts for them.

And I'm pleased to report that people have come to realize the benefits of
health savings accounts, such as, one, health savings accounts are
affordable for individuals and small businesses. In other words, if you're
a small business owner and you're worried about providing good health care
for your employees, you ought to look into a health savings account as a
way to provide that benefit to your employees.

Secondly, health savings accounts enable a person to save, tax-free, for
medical expenses. By making rational decisions about your life, you'll end
up with more money in your health savings account, on a tax-free basis.

And thirdly, that savings account is something you can carry with you from
job to job. A lot of people in America change jobs on a regular basis, and
they are deeply concerned about whether or not they'll have a health care
plan when they change jobs. And the health savings account enables you to
carry your money that you've saved on a tax-free basis from one job to the
next.

You know, two years ago there was -- about a million of our citizens had
health savings accounts. And today, over 5 million people have health
savings accounts -- or nearly 5 million people have health savings
accounts. It's up -- actually, you can see from the chart the growth -- 4.5
million people. And that's a 43-percent increase from last year to this
year, and the number of people that are beginning to realize the benefits
of health savings accounts.

And interestingly enough, of those who purchased -- of individuals who
purchased health savings accounts, about 25 percent of them were uninsured.
In other words, health savings accounts enable someone who is uninsured to
realize the benefits of private insurance, and in an affordable way.

I strongly believe that the United States Congress needs to strengthen
health savings accounts, just like they need to make sure that the tax code
treats every person in America fairly. And that's why I've suggested we
change the tax code to enable the small business owner, the self-employed,
or the individual worker to be able to have more affordable insurance.
There's a lot we can do together to empower the individual in this country
to be in charge of his or her health care decisions.

So I want to thank my fellow Americans for joining us. I really appreciate
the discussion we had. We've got people from Minnesota and Texas and
Georgia and Michigan. These are people who are beginning to realize the
benefits of health savings. And I thank you for sharing your information
with me. Thank you.

END 11:27 A.M. EDT

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