News Release

Secretary Leavitt Renews HHS' Commitment to Improving Access to Health Care

In recognition of �Cover the Uninsured Week,� HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt today renewed the Department's commitment to continue working to provide all Americans access to affordable, high-quality health care.

�Americans enjoy the finest health care in the world. Our challenge is to make the care more affordable and ensure that everyone has access to health care,� Secretary Leavitt said. �Over the past four years, President Bush has taken important steps to meet this challenge, and this week is an important time to renew our energies in this effort.�

HHS has done much to ensure that more Americans receive the health care coverage they need and supports the President�s comprehensive, consumer-driven plan to address the problems of rising health care costs and the uninsured. Overall, the President's FY 2006 budget requests $140 billion over ten years to help more Americans gain access to health care services or make health insurance more affordable.

HHS has made the nation�s health care safety net more secure by investing nearly $7 billion in programs and services that safeguard the health and well-being of the nation's most vulnerable individuals and families. Through its programs, HHS is improving America's health by expanding access to comprehensive, quality health care for limited-income and uninsured Americans, mothers and their children, people with HIV/AIDS, and residents of rural areas.

In FY 2006 HHS will complete the President's five-year commitment to create 1,200 new or expanded health center sites and serve an additional 6.1 million people by 2006. In FY 2006 alone, more than 2.4 million individuals will receive health care through 578 new or expanded sites in rural areas and underserved urban communities. In addition, the President is establishing a new goal to help every poor county in America in need that lacks a health center with the FY 2006 request funds for 40 new health center sites in high-poverty counties.

HHS� efforts to strengthen and expand Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) helps allow states to provide access to quality care for uninsured Americans who qualify under these programs. Together, the states and federal government will combine nearly $338 billion in FY 2005 to help nearly 56 million Americans eligible for Medicaid or SCHIP receive access to health coverage. Since January 2001, HHS has approved waivers and plan amendments that allowed states to expand eligibility to more than 2.6 million people and to improve benefits for more than 7 million people.

Since 2002, HHS has awarded nearly $70 million to states through two grant programs to support high-risk insurance pools and expect to award, through FY 2005, an additional $14.5 million. High-risk pools are typically state-created non-profit associations that offers health coverage to individuals with serious medical conditions. The pools also help reduce the premium costs for others who buy insurance by subsidizing the higher insurance costs of people with serious chronic conditions.

The President�s budget, for FY 2006, also proposes $1.7 billion over five years to help Americans of limited incomes purchase coverage by establishing a health insurance tax credit and establishing State Purchasing Pools to maximize these individual�s purchasing power.

Improvements in health information technology has the potential to produce savings of up to10 percent of the country's total annual spending on health care. This would greatly improve access to and affordability of health care for more Americans. In addition to improving the quality of care and reducing medical errors, health information technology also lowers administrative costs. HHS is proposing an additional $125 million in spending in FY 2006 to build upon these efforts.

In October 2004, HHS awarded $139 million in grants and contracts to promote the use of health information technology. These awards will provide insight into how best to use health information technologies to improve patient safety by reducing medication errors; increasing the use of shared health information between providers, laboratories, pharmacies and patients; helping to insure safer patient transitions between health care settings, including hospitals, doctors� offices, and nursing homes; and reducing duplicative and unnecessary testing.

In efforts to further reduce the number of uninsured Americans, HHS supports common-sense medical liability reform to protect patients and supports the President�s efforts to encourage Congress to pass legislation that reduces the burden of frivolous lawsuits. Medical liability reform can also help curb the skyrocketing costs associated with these lawsuits and help make health care more affordable and accessible for all Americans while improving quality and safety.