Remarks by President Bush at Saint Luke's East -- Lee's Summit, MO, Jan 25, 2007

I think it's very important to help develop plans that make the consumer in charge of as much of the health care decision as possible. These are called -- one idea is health savings accounts, which basically says that there is a product available for you to use where you're the decision maker, and you're able to contribute tax free, earn money in your account tax free, take money out tax free on medicine. If you don't spend the money in your account one year, you can roll it over. It becomes a savings account. It's an incentive for you to make good decisions about your life, and it also provides catastrophic care in case something bad happens to you. We'll talk about health savings accounts here in a minute, and their effect on enabling people who do not have insurance to have health care available and affordable for them.

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One way to encourage you to make the right decisions when it comes to health care is to take the inequities out of the tax code. If you work for a company, you pay -- you get your health care free, in essence. It's part of the benefit package. If you're a stand-alone person, you pay your health care 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 people to be able to -- individuals or small company employees to be able to buy health care.

Comments by Bush on April 2, 2007