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Bush urges action on education; Democrats defend health care bill



By From Kelly Wallace
CNN White House Correspondent

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine -- President Bush tried to step up the pressure on Congress Saturday, calling on lawmakers to "finish the job" and pass an education bill before students return to classes in the fall.

"Completing the work of education reform is a final exam for Congress before they go home in August for summer vacation and before America's children go back to school," the president said in his weekly radio address.

Bush made the same public push Thursday, before leaving for a four-day vacation at the family home in Kennebunkport, and plans to repeat the message in a speech Monday.

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have passed measures calling for sweeping changes, including requiring annual testing of students in reading and math in grades three through eight, giving flexibility to states and local school boards over how to spend federal dollars, and holding schools accountable for the performance of students.

Bush aides have charged that the Democratically controlled Senate has been slow to name conferees for a committee to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill.

"The plan has now passed both Houses of Congress with strong margins and broad bipartisan support. We stand on the verge of dramatic improvements for America's public schools," the president said. "Yet, all of this will happen only when Congress joins me to take the final, crucial step of resolving differences between the House and the Senate versions and sending an education reform bill to my desk."

Bush said the differences between the two plans are "small," although he said the Senate bill would offer states more flexibility and the House bill, he said, was more "fiscally responsible."

The Senate bill, which passed in June, calls for $42 billion in federal spending, while the House measure calls for $23 billion in federal spending on education.

Neither bill includes Bush's proposal for so-called vouchers, which would provide federal tax dollars to parents to pay for private schools if their children's public schools continue to fail. However, both measures do allow students in failing schools to switch to another public school after three years, or obtain federal dollars to use for private tutoring programs.

Bush's radio address is part of what the White House calls its summer strategy, having the president focus on what aides call "compassionate" issues, such as education, a plan to allow religious groups to obtain federal tax dollars to provide social services and the president's ideas for a patients' bill of rights.

The new strategy comes after the president's poll numbers have been dipping since the spring, and after Democrats claimed victory with the passage of a patients' bill of rights in the Senate. This week, Bush will visit a few hospitals in the Washington, D.C., area to press Congress to pass a bill he can sign regarding patient protections. The president said he would veto the measure which passed the Senate, because he says it would result in too many lawsuits and would jack up health care costs, forcing some employers to no longer provide coverage to their employees.

The president hopes the House of Representatives will pass a bill that is more to his liking.

In the Democratic radio response, Rep. John Dingell (D-Michigan), co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill the House will consider following the July 4th recess, accused the president of engaging in a "gross and deliberate misrepresentation" of the facts.

Dingell said the bill favored by Democrats and his Republican co-sponsors, Reps. Charles Norwood (R-Georgia) and Greg Ganske (R-Iowa) would not be a boon to trial lawyers. Dingell said in the five years since a similar measure passed in Texas, only 17 cases have been filed in court.

The Democratic lawmaker also objected to the notion that health care costs would skyrocket. "Our bill will cause a slight rise in health care fees -- approximately 4.2 percent over 5 years. That's the equivalent of 1 Big Mac or 1 Happy Meal a month," said Dingell. "That's a small price to pay to ensure that you have fundamental rights regarding your health care."

Dingell argued employers would not cancel health care coverage, and said his plan which allows patients to sue in both state and federal court is the best way to ensure that people get the protections they need.

"The president would prefer that all lawsuits involving negligent HMOs be handled in federal court, where injured patients would have to travel far from home and wait in a long line behind criminals and other miscreants to have their cases heard," Dingell said. "This is wrong and we reject it."

Bush said he would spend time Saturday reading a few of the speeches he will deliver this week. He spent the morning golfing and was expected to do some boating near the vacation home in the afternoon. He and first lady Laura Bush return to Washington on Sunday evening.







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