HEALTH CARE TRANSPARENCY

08/23/2006

Bush and Pawlenty sing a little, dance a little, do very little

ST. PAUL (8/22/06) – Today, Gov. Pawlenty stood with President Bush to discuss health-care transparency and consumer-driven health care initiatives. Minnesota DFL Chair Brian Melendez released the following statement:

“The only truly transparent aspect of today’s press conference is the political motivation behind it. These two Republican leaders have done nothing to promote affordable health care in Minnesota or in this country, so the president has come to town to help the governor out with a little election-year gimmickry.

“They can talk about consumer-driven health care all they want, but unless they mean driving consumers off the health-care rolls, they’re being disingenuous. Under Tim Pawlenty, there are 386,000 Minnesotans without health insurance – and that number includes the 36,000 people he threw off of MinnesotaCare to fix the holes in his ‘no new taxes’ budget. It’s possible that the only politician with a worse record on health care was standing next to him today. Under President Bush, America is home to 46 million uninsured people.”