In President Bush’s speech on Social Security (June 8, 2005), he included the following remarks on health care:

"So while we'll continue to work to do our duty to secure you, we got to work here at home to keep this economy growing. And here's some practical ways to do that. First, I understand that health care is an issue for small businesses. See, if most new jobs are created by small businesses, it makes sense to have good economic policies that help small businesses. And so, therefore, one of the things we've got to do is to be wise about how we help small businesses deal with insurance, health insurance.

One thing is for certain, to deal with health insurance is we need to pass medical liability reform. One reason your premiums are high is because of the junk and frivolous lawsuits that are running good doctors out of practice and running up the cost of medicine. (Applause.) When I first came to Washington I wasn't so sure this was a federal issue. You know, being the former governor of a state, I kind of felt like the states could take care of medical liability issues. But you see, all these lawsuits cause docs to practice what they call defensive medicine. They practice more medicine than necessary just in case they get sued. And all these lawsuits are running up the cost of medicine because premiums go up that they pass on to the bill payer. Well, it just so happened the federal government pays a lot of medical bills. So you were paying Medicare and Medicaid and veterans benefits. It is estimated that these junk lawsuits are costing taxpayers about $27 billion a year.

And so I decided, well, maybe this wasn't a state issue; maybe this was a federal issue since it's affecting our federal budget so much, and it's a federal issue that requires a federal response. And so I put a good bill out, the House passed it, it's stuck in the United States Senate. For the sake of affordable health care, the Senate needs to get a good medical liability bill out of that -- (applause.)

A couple of other practical ideas that small businesses need to look at and that Congress needs to act upon, one of them is health savings accounts. I urge you to take a good look at HSAs as a good way to help deal with the rising cost of health care, and at the same time, make sure your employees have got coverage. Take a look at it.

A second plan that makes sense is to allow small businesses to pool risk across jurisdictional boundaries, what's called association health care plans. It means that if you're a small business in Texas and you're a small business in New Jersey, that you can be in the same risk pool if you share the same type of industry -- restauranteur, for example, in Maine, and a restauranteur in Florida can be in the same risk pool. Obviously, the more people in the pool, the more you spread risk, the lower the cost.

The way I like to put it is this: Congress ought to allow small businesses to join together so they can buy insurance at the same discount that big businesses get to do, for the sake of health care for small businesses and their employees. (Applause.) One way to make sure this economy continues to grow is to show the markets and the people that we're wise about how we spend your money. I sent some budgets up to Congress that are lean, that said, well, let's -- why don't we set priorities and also ask the question of, you know, some of these programs we're funding, are they working. And if they're not working, let's stop funding them -- kind of a results-oriented system. I'm pleased to report both the House and the Senate passed my budget -- which, by the way, will mean that we can cut the deficit in half in a five-year period of time without raising your taxes."