Angie Craig: “I come this evening to add to the underlying legislation that we are now calling a stimulus package, or at least an…”

“I come this evening to add to the underlying legislation that we are now calling a stimulus package, or at least an effort on the part of Congress and this Senate to produce a Senate version of stimulus that we might get to the House and into conference, an amount that I think is a clear and important part of that stimulus package. As President Bush has said, Americans know economic security can vanish in an instant without health security. Today nearly 40 million Americans lack health insurance, a crisis that can only worsen today's climate of job loss and double-digit health premium increases. In 1997, Congress launched a test program to see if medical savings accounts could provide families with health security. That program has succeeded. Despite unnecessary restrictions, over one-third of the participants were previously uninsured. A medical savings account effort to extend coverage to the uninsured at a fraction of the cost of government health care programs has worked in this economy. Rather than letting this promising reform program expire this year, my colleague from New Jersey and I have introduced an amendment to make medical savings accounts permanent and widely available.”