The National Center for Policy Analysis started the new year at a brisk pace with an eventful first quarter that saw many NCPA ideas spotlighted on Washington's center stage.

The Bush Administration began 2006 signaling that health care would be its top domestic policy priority, outlining an agenda that included many ideas developed and promoted by the NCPA. In his State of the Union address, the president proposed a patient-centered idea the NCPA has championed for years: personal and portable health insurance that Americans could take with them from job to job. As I explain in my own Brief Analysis, personal and portable health insurance promises a continuing relationship with an insurer and, therefore, a continuing relationship with doctors and health facilities. It means if people are in a health plan they like, they can stay in it.

In conjunction with the State of the Union address, the president released a bold and sweeping set of health policy proposals. At an NCPA Capitol Hill briefing Roy Ramthun, Special Assistant to President Bush for Economic Policy, recounted the remarkable HSA success story—more than 3.2 million Americans have already enrolled, and the Treasury predicts enrollment will hit 14 million by 2010, and 21 million if the president's proposals are adopted. He also explained how the president proposes to make HSAs more affordable. Proposed tax credits, tax deductions and other reforms will give more people access to these accounts that let them manage their own health care dollars.

Driven by consumer demand, the private sector has developed tools that enable patients to manage their health care dollars effectively—in some cases to shop for hospitals and medical professionals the way they shop for groceries, comparing prices as well as quality. On the eve of Congressional hearings in March, the NCPA hosted a briefing at the National Press Club to highlight new private-sector technologies that allow consumers to make side-by-side comparisons of doctors and hospitals. The next day I testified before the House

Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee on how these technologies will empower patients to be informed health care consumers.

I personally made the economic case for Health Savings Accounts at the 2 nd Annual World Health Care Congress in Paris , France . This conference was attended by over 400 health care leaders from key organizations across Europe . Earlier in the year, I addressed a meeting of the Business Roundtable in Boca Raton , Florida .

The NCPA has also partnered with the World Health Congress to form the American Health Policy Network (AHPN). This is a group of industry, academic and political leaders seeking market-based solutions to health care problems. AHPN meets regularly in Washington , D.C. , and is a source of new ideas for Congress and the Bush Administration.

As 77 million baby boomers and future generations prepare for retirement, the nation is nowhere near ready. Our new NCPA study, Ten Steps to Reforming Baby Boomer Retirement, details ten actions we must take to brace elderly entitlement programs for the impact, such as reforming our public policies toward 401(k) plans, traditional pension plans and IRAs; removing penalties on retirees who work; radically changing the Social Security benefits tax; and giving tax relief to early retirees who must purchase their own health insurance. Both the House and Senate have already passed pension bills that include ideas promoted in our NCPA/Brookings proposal to reform 401(k) plans.

NCPA Senior Fellow Thomas R. Saving was reappointed by President Bush as a Public Trustee of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds and serves on the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security. At a policy retreat at George Mason University , Saving spoke directly to Congressional Chiefs of Staff about possible implementation of NCPA reforms.

The NCPA's E-Team continues to correct misinformation and promote sensible solutions to energy and environment problems. Our policy experts believe that with sound science economic prosperity and environmental protection can go hand in hand. A new study, Protecting the Environment Through the Ownership Society — Part One, by NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett, shows how President Bush's Ownership Society concept – that the welfare of individuals, and thus the nation, is best served by giving people control to chart their own course toward their own goals – can be advantageously applied to energy and environmental policy.

Released as the World Trade Organization began trade negotiations in March, a new NCPA Brief Analysis Farm Subsidies: Devastating the World's Poor and the Environment shows that subsidized agriculture in the developed world arrests economic growth in the developing world, and causes severe environmental damage in rich and poor nations alike. This debate is a key reason the WTO missed their April 30 discussion deadline.

In the first two months of this year, our E-team experts reached over two million households through our redesigned website eteam.ncpa.org and media appearances in UPI, The New Yorker, CNBC's Closing Bell , The Wall Street Journal and dozens of others. NCPA is getting the word out, and as a result free market ideas are becoming free market policies.

Walter Cronkite, longtime CBS news anchor, survived a good-natured interrogation by NCPA Chairman Pete du Pont at a Hatton W. Sumners Distinguished Lecture Series luncheon on March 2. In February "contrarian" Christopher Hitchens discussed America's role in Iraq , providing a better defense of our nation's Iraq policy than the Administration does. Through our lecture series program we bring high-profile speakers to Dallas to promote discussion and a better understanding of issues related to self-government and citizenship.

These are only a few of the first quarter activities you can read about in depth in the attached report. Next quarter look for a new book, Leaving Women Behind: Modern Families, Outdated Laws , that offers reform solutions for the outdated benefit system that fails to meet the needs of modern working women. We'll also have updates from our Center for European Policy Analysis.

Your valued support makes this work possible, and we greatly appreciate your contribution.

Warm regards,

John Goodman
President

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