Health plan in Leavitt's lap

WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt is taking President Bush's health insurance initiatives on the road, pounding out a message of health insurance accessibility and affordability, state by state.

"There is a wide aspiration," Leavitt said in an interview Wednesday, "that every person have access to an affordable basic health-care policy."

One of Bush's proposals would allow people to deduct health insurance costs from their taxes, while another would give federal help to states that work on putting a basic — and affordable — health-care plan in place.

Leavitt , Utah's former governor, has experience putting a health program in place, he said, but he wants to use his experience in Utah, as well as now having seen other programs in other states, to make health care available to more people.

For the new tax exemption policy, Leavitt said construction workers, waitresses, the self-employed and many others do not get health insurance through their employer.

If they purchase a policy on their own, they have to use after-tax dollars from a paycheck to buy it, whereas those with employer-sponsored plans pay for it with pre-tax dollars.

"They have to pay all their income tax and then pay for health insurance," Leavitt said.

Bush wants to create a standard deduction for health insurance so the tax savings can help offset the cost.

The plan has a flat, standard deduction for anybody who purchases any kind of health insurance, no matter how much the health insurance costs and no matter where they get it, said Katherine Baicker of the President's Council of Economic Advisers.

The deduction would be $15,000 for a family policy or $7,500 for a single policy, whether people obtain health insurance through an employer or have to buy it on their own, she said, regardless of how much the policy actually costs.

Critics say the proposal may prompt some individuals to drop coverage, turn down coverage available to them or get inadequate coverage.

"This proposal deserves further study to determine if it has merit," said Sid Paulson, president and chief executive officer of SelectHealth, Intermountain Healthcare's health-insurance company. He called the tax incentives "interesting to consider" and added, "while we have not yet had the opportunity to study the specifics of this proposal, we support efforts to help people get insurance and access high quality health care."