Bush has turned his back on the wellness of America

BUSH: A plan is not a litany of complaints and not to lay out programs that you can’t pay for. The same plan that senators and congressmen get costs the government $7,700 per family. If every family in America signed up like the senator suggested it would cost us $5 trillion over 10 years. It’s an empty promise. It’s called bait and switch.

Bush blocked drugs importation and Medicare bulk purchasing

Kerry’s healthcare plan lets people choose their plan

A: Two leading national news networks have both said Bush’s characterization of my health-care plan is incorrect. One called it fiction. The other called it untrue. The fact is that my health-care plan, America, is very simple. It gives you the choice. I don’t force you to do anything. It’s not a government plan. The government doesn’t require you to do anything. You choose your doctor. You choose your plan. If you don’t want to take the offer of the plan that I want to put forward, you don’t have do. You can keep what you have today, keep a high deductible, keep high premiums, keep a high co-pay, keep low benefits. Here’s what I do: We take over Medicaid children from the states so that every child in America is covered. And in exchange, if the states want to-they’re not forced to, they can choose to-they cover individuals up to 300 percent of poverty. It’s their choice.

Bush hasn’t fully funded the VA hospitals and Medicare

BUSH: Talk about the VA: We’ve increased VA funding by $22 billion in the four years since I’ve been president. That’s twice the amount that my predecessor increased VA funding. Of course we’re meeting our obligation to our veterans, and the veterans know that. We’re expanding veterans’ health care throughout the country. We’re aligning facilities where the veterans live now. Veterans are getting very good health care under my administration, and they will continue to do so during the next four years.

FactCheck: Bush’s plan yields $13B for big pharma, not $139B

Kerry bases his claim on one disputed study by two Bush critics, Boston University researchers Alan Sager and Deborah Socolar, who concluded that 35% of the $400 billion cost that was projected at the time-or $139 billion-would be “windfall profits” to drug companies. Their findings are contradicted by a study in March 2004 commissioned by the Pacific Research Institute, which describes itself as a “free-market think tank.” They estimated drug company profits much lower-from an increase of 3.2% ($13 billion) to a possible decline of 1%. The two studies make starkly different assumptions about whether the new drug benefit will cause seniors to buy a lot more medication thereby increasing sales, and also about the extent to which competition among different drug plans will force drug companies to offer rebates and discounts to get the business.

Bush said in 2000 that re-importation from Canada was OK

Bush chose a tax cut over health care

BUSH: If they’re safe, they’re coming. I want to remind you that it wasn’t just my administration that made the decision on safety. Clinton did the sam thing because we have an obligation to protect you. Kerry’s been in the US Senate 20 years. Show me one accomplishment toward Medicare that he accomplished. I’ve been in Washington 3-1/2 years and led the Congress to reform Medicare so our seniors have got a modern health care system.

KERRY: In 1997 we fixed Medicare, and I was one of the people involved in it. We not only fixed Medicare and took it way out into the future; we did something that you don’t know how to do, we balanced the budget.

Bush has no plan to address the health care crisis

Don’t push seniors into HMOs; change Bush Rx plan

A: I will change the benefit so that it: rewards employers who are offering retiree health benefits rather than undermining them; does not push seniors into HMOs; includes real cost containment and improves protections for low-income Americans.

Tax cut of $550 billion would cut Medicare

FactCheck: Kerry’s plan covers 92%, not 100% of Americans

Created catastrophic health insurance and withdrew it