Bush continues healthcare offensive

President Bush continued his drive for changes in the healthcare system, participating in a panel discussion hosted by the Department of Health and Human Services. The President continued to stress ownership themes, arguing that patients need to take responsibility for their healthcare choices and that injecting market forces into the healthcare system will radically reduce costs. "When somebody else pays the bills, rarely do you ask price or ask the cost of something," Bush said. "The problem with that is that there's no kind of market force, there's no consumer advocacy for reasonable price when somebody else pays the bills. One of the reasons why we're having inflation in healthcare is because there is no sense of market."

The President also repeated his pledge to create an electronic medical record for every American, pointing at the success of IT initiatives at the Veteran's Administration.

- see this article from The Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)
- read text of the panel's discussion in this White House press release

PLUS: An opinion piece in The Washington Post calls Bush's claims "phony populism," noting that his health plan would benefit those with higher incomes. Op-Ed

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