President's Health Reform Agenda Draws Mixed Reviews

HealthDay provides an outline of the debate of Health Savings Accounts (HSA)

Critics say key proposal -- expanding health savings accounts -- won't ease health-care woes

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 1 (HealthDay News) -- President Bush drew mixed reaction Wednesday to his broadly outlined strategy for taming health-care costs and reducing the ranks of the uninsured in his State of the Union address Tuesday evening.

Whether it's the right prescription for solving the nation's health-care ills was a matter of debate by experts.

Proponents of market-based health reform welcomed the president's proposal to expand health savings accounts (HSAs) through tax incentives and new provisions that would make HSA-compatible health insurance more flexible and transferable.

"You're giving people control over their own money, so that's always a winner in my book," said Devon M. Herrick, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis, in Dallas.

Critics, however, argued that high-deductible health plans and proposed tax breaks don't go far enough to ease health inflation or solve the nation's uninsured crisis.for more of the story from HealthDay