President Bush's letter to HRMAgazine - George Bush - Politics and the Workplace

Human resource management is an important and indispensable part of every successful business. My Administration is working hard to make sure that American's businesses are allowed to train and help all employees reach their full potential without unnecessary government interference.

Health Care

My Health Care Reform Program, by building on the strengths of our current system, will ensure everyone access to affordable coverage. Unlike others who would require employers to provide government-specified insurance or pay substantially higher wage taxes, my plan will enable employers to offer health insurance that meets the needs of their employees.

The majority of health insurance policies are employment-based in the United States. My plan deals with barriers preventing some employers from offering health insurance. Insurance for these groups has been too expensive and too unreliable. I have proposed changes to limit the differences in premiums that can be charged similar groups; to limit how much premiums can be increased; and to assure that insurance companies cover all firms and all employees who apply. By creating broad-risk pooling for individuals and businesses (especially small businesses), health insurance coverage will be more affordable. Insurers will participate in broad pooling arrangements to spread risks evenly across insurers, and limits will be placed on the amount of variation in premiums because of nondemographic characteristics.

These reforms will protect business employers against dramatic premium increases caused by employees' illnesses and will ensure that individual employees cannot be excluded from an insurance group because of their medical conditions. My plan will encourage group purchasing of health insurance by small business employers, enabling them to gain the same cost advantage and market power as larger employers. My plan will eliminate pre-existing condition clauses for continuously insured individuals.

Except for those plans covered under ERISA regulation, I do not support uniform federal regulation of private health care. My Administration has not proposed any federal regulation regarding the design or definition of self-funded health-care plans. My Comprehensive Health-Care Program is designed to provide flexibility and encourage innovation. For that reason, individual states, rather than the federal government, should regulate private health plans. States are in a much better position to determine the unique needs of their citizens and the business community.

While some seek to discard our entire health-care system, my plan instead fixes the parts of the system that are not working well. My plan is a comprehensive reform plan that does not limit choice, set prices or ration care--all without raising taxes.

Job Training

To ensure that our workforce can compete in the global marketplace, I have proposed the Job Training 2000 Act. This initiative will improve access to vocational training, decentralize federal government decision making and create a flexible delivery structure that reflects local labor market conditions. It will also ensure high standards of accountability and incentives for quality vocational training, and will encourage greater private sector involvement.

My Job Training 2000 initiative will be coordinated through an altered system of Private Industry Councils (PICs) originally formed under the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). This modified and expanded PIC system will serve the public as "one-stop shopping" points of entry into Skills Centers providing counseling, testing, labor market information, job placement assistance, and referral to job and vocational training programs or postsecondary institutions. A voucher system will be instituted to help students meet the costs of their vocational education. These measures will help maintain our workforce as the most skilled in the world.

Family Leave

All parents need time to care for their children, especially when their children are infants or need medical attention or care. I support and encourage family and medical leave policies designed to meet the specific needs of individual companies and their employees. I believe, however, that this objective can best be achieved voluntarily through employee-employer negotiations or in the normal collective bargaining process between management and labor, not by the federal government.

Mandatory family and medical leave would reduce flexibility to meet the needs of a changing workforce. It would encourage employers to reduce overall employee benefits in order to afford new, mandatory family and leave benefits. It would also impose the costs of leave on employers regardless of their ability to absorb such costs, thus reducing their productivity and U.S. competitiveness. The impact on small businesses would be onerous.

Replacement of Striking Workers

I am convinced that any legislation to prevent employers from permanently replacing employees during a strike would be detrimental to America's economic health and would hinder our efforts to stimulate economic growth. It would threaten our nation's competitiveness, result in fewer job opportunities, disrupt the flow of commerce, create a hardship for small and struggling businesses, and encourage confrontation in the workplace.

In an increasingly competitive global marketplace, American workers and business managers need to pull together as they never have before. We do not need legislation that would move us in precisely the opposite direction.

COPYRIGHT 1992 Society for Human Resource Management
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group