Bush's health care initiative won't solve overall problem

President Bush came to Youngstown Tuesday to tout the merits of community health centers, like the ones in Youngstown, Warren and Alliance, but his admission that more money is needed from Congress to meet his goal of 1,300 new facilities highlights the problem of trying to address a national crisis with a series of initiatives.
As we've consistently argued over the years, all the government programs in existence will not completely solve the problem of the 44 million Americans who do not have health insurance. Community health centers, tax credits for those with less than full health insurance coverage and health savings accounts for small business are worthwhile, but stop-gap measures.
The health insurance crisis in this country demands an all-encompassing national initiative. The escalating cost of health care is exacerbating the problem. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the U.S. Census Bureau reported last year that the percentage of workers covered by employer-sponsored health care programs dropped to 61.3 percent in 2002 from 62.6 percent in 2001.
A study by the National Federation of Independent Business and Wells Fargo found that two-thirds of the small businesses surveyed cited health care expenses as a critical problem, the San Jose Mercury News reported this week.
"Small-business owners have been receiving increases of 15 to 20 percent a year in their premiums for approximately the last five years," the paper quotes Bruce Phillips, the business federation's senior research fellow, as saying. Phillips adds that costs are being driven by an aging population and increasingly sophisticated medical treatments.
The result: a growing number of small businesses are passing a greater share of health insurance costs onto their employees or are canceling such coverage.
Financial pressures
To his credit, President Bush, in his appearance at Bliss Hall's Spotlight Theater on the campus of Youngstown State University, acknowledged the financial pressures on employers, especially small business owners, and the strain on hospital emergency rooms, which for many Americans have taken the place of doctors' offices.
He called the community health centers "part of the safety net," and said they were a wise expenditure of tax dollars.
The problem, however, is finding the money to establish enough of these facilities to address the growing need for basic health care in America. When Bush took office in January 2000, there were 3,200 sites; he set a goal of 1,200 more. Today, that goal has been half met
"We provide care up to about 13 million people a year, I think," Bush told the gathering of health care professionals and political and community leaders. "I think it's important for us to continue to either expand existing community health centers, or build new ones. The goal I set when I first got elected was that we would expand them by 1,200 -- expand or build 1,200 new ones. We've accomplished half of that goal. I'm asking for Congress to accomplish the other half of the goal over the next couple of years."
Debate
The president was warmly received from the invitation-only crowd, but given that the brief stop in Youngstown was designated an official visit by the president -- as opposed to a campaign visit -- we would have liked to have seen Bush debate the merits of his approach with someone like U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown of Lorain, D-13th, who has made health care a signature issue.
Such as debate could have centered on the president's contention that initiatives such as community health centers are "a heck of a lot better system than having the entire health care system federalized."
A significant amount of federal money is being spent on such centers -- the president's budget for fiscal year 2005 seeks $1.8 billion -- and so the question: Is this the best use of limited tax dollars to address a growing crisis?