Kerry vows to cut health insurance costs

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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry promised delegates to the American Federation of Teachers convention yesterday that his first act as president would be to send Congress sweeping legislation that would cut health insurance costs by tens of billions of dollars.

"The money that should be going into your pockets is going to pay the rising cost of health care," Mr. Kerry told more than 3,000 cheering members of the 1.3-million-member school and hospital workers union.

"That's why I've got a plan to get the waste and greed out of our health care system and help families save up to $1,000 on their premiums," Mr. Kerry said in his appearance at the D.C. Convention Center.

The AFT and the larger 2.7-million-member National Education Association (NEA) have both endorsed Mr. Kerry and running mate Sen. John Edwards.

The Kerry health plan calls for a federal premium rebate pool that would reimburse employee health plans for 75 percent of the catastrophic costs they incur above $50,000 as long as the savings are used to reduce worker health insurance premiums.

Mr. Kerry also promised, if elected, to promptly ask Congress to eliminate the Bush administration's across-the-board tax rate cuts and other reductions.

"My choice is to roll back that tax cut that we can't afford and meet our responsibility to education and health care," the Massachusetts senator said.

He also pledged to fully fund the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) by asking Congress to pump another $27 billion beyond the 51 percent increase in federal funding for low-income school districts under Bush administration school reforms.

"When the No Child Left Behind Act became law, Congress and this administration ... said we're going to raise standards and we're going to make sure you have the resources to get the job done," Mr. Kerry said.

"Well, two months after the law was signed, this administration tried to break their promise by shortchanging the law by $27 billion. Millions of children have been left behind, left with overcrowded classrooms, left without textbooks, and left without the high-quality tests that measure what they're learning," he said.

Even a majority of Democrats in Congress have not tried to fully fund NCLB, said Rep. John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee.

Mr. Boehner said the Democrats' own proposed budget resolution for fiscal year 2005 fell $5.1 billion short of the authorized $20.5-billion cap for NCLB.

"These Democrat attacks are a shameless distortion of the facts, and Democratic leaders should be held accountable for using rhetoric that doesn't square with their actions," Mr. Boehner said.

AFT delegates enthusiastically cheered Mr. Kerry's speech, including his renewed commitment to fight for teacher "pay-for-performance" -- a proposal he unveiled last May in California, but which was severely criticized by the NEA.

The Kerry plan calls for new teacher pay systems that reward excellent teachers based on improvement in student achievement and those willing to teach in highly challenging poor school districts.

NEA President Reg Weaver told union officials in a confidential memo in May that he and other top NEA leaders had met privately with Mr. Kerry and obtained his promise not use the language "pay-for-performance."

Mr. Kerry did not use merit-pay language yesterday, but he told the AFT: "Pay for teachers today is a national disgrace. We need to raise it." He said teachers should be paid "more like professionals. Not only does that mean higher pay, it means new rewards for teachers who gain advanced training and excel in raising student achievement."