Bush's Passions Laid Foundations

President George Bush has passions. You never saw it in his speeches. But I did, up close. And out of those passions — the ones I saw as majority leader working with him — will come his greatest legacy.

First is education. I helped run the platform committee for the Republican convention in 2000. The soon to be Republican nominee asked me to make K-12 education the No. 1 priority of the Republican Party. Impossible, I told him. Republicans had wanted to eliminate the Department of Education; there's no way they will make it a federal priority. "Do it," he said; we did. And as president he opened our country's eyes to the moral and economic imperative that the greatness of America cannot be maintained when we educate our children more poorly than 20 other nations. He delivered a program that focused the country on raising expectations for our children and narrowing the achievement gap by transparency and accountability.

Drug plan has worked

Second is slowing the growth of health-care cost increases and improving access to the most powerful tools of prevention and treatment. The president's prescription drug plan has meant that for the first time ever through Medicare, seniors have affordable access to life-saving drugs. Before Bush, drugs were not a part of Medicare — you were on your own. Today, they are. And the cost? Estimated savings for each of the last two years compared to what was predicted has been 20 to 30 percent! His plan, based on competition and the markets, is driving not just seniors but all people to use lower-cost generic drugs.

Third is revolutionizing foreign aid. Not only did President Bush double total foreign aid worldwide (No president has done that since Harry Truman), but he also created a new mechanism through which aid can flow. The Millennium Challenge Corp. uses 17 results-based criteria that reflect a potential recipient country's commitment to fighting corruption, governing justly, investing in its own people and economic freedom to determine where to invest American taxpayer money. A Tennessean can know that her taxpayer dollars will go only where it can truly lift people out of poverty through sustainable economic development rather than being thrown down a rat hole by some earmarking politician or bureaucrat.

Fourth is reversing the scourge of today's global disease, which has reached biblical proportions. When I came to Vanderbilt as a doctor in 1984, HIV had just been discovered in this country. We watched it kill a million people, then 5, then 10 and then 23 million people.

Our nation talked a good game, but it took George Bush to stand up and boldly commit more resources to fight HIV than had ever been committed by any country in the world against a single disease. And his leadership put it high on the agenda of every nation in the world.

When I would visit world leaders, they knew that HIV better be at the top of their speaking points because it was important to President Bush and the American people. The result: Millions of lives have been saved, tens of millions will receive treatment — all can be traced to President George W. Bush's proclamation on Jan. 29, 2003. That is the greatness of America in action.

So as we bring this chapter to a close and enthusiastically rally around our new president, let's build on the enduring foundations of educaton, health and life-saving compassion that President George W. Bush has laid.

President Bush Has Saved 10 Million Lives In Africa

By Bill Frist
Special to CNN


Editor's note: Bill Frist, a physician, is former Republican majority leader of the U.S. Senate and a professor of medicine and business at Vanderbilt University.
Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says George Bush's AIDS policy has saved millions in Africa.

Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says George Bush's AIDS policy has saved millions in Africa.

(CNN) -- A legacy of President George W. Bush will be that he saved 10 million lives around the world.

His critics ignore it, but name another president about whom one can say that with such certainty. It is what historians will say a decade from now looking back. Not bad for a president who leaves office with the lowest approval rating in recent memory.

The bottom line is: George Bush is a healer.

First, a surprise proclamation came on January 29, 2003.

I was in the first row in the House chamber when three quarters through his State of the Union address, the president boldly said: "I ask the Congress to commit $15 billion over the next five years ... to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean" and "lead the world in sparing innocent people from a plague of nature."

And lead the world we did. No president in history had made such a commitment against a single disease. Those words and the action that followed meant that instead of another 30 million people dying from HIV infections, maybe just another 20 million will.

Later that night in an interview for CNN in my Capitol office, I predicted that five years later, this commitment to fight HIV would be the single most significant thing the president said that night. It was.

But even I -- who as physician in Africa had witnessed how this virus was hollowing out societies -- did not predict the huge global impact this Bush commitment would have on generations to come.
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In my annual medical mission trips to Africa during the Bush administration, I saw the cost of treatment for HIV with life-saving antiretrovirals (ARVs) drop from $4,000 a year to $125. The number of Africans on ARVs jumped from 50,000 to 2.1 million.

And the multiplier effect of Bush making this a presidential global priority was reflected thereafter in every meeting I had as Senate majority leader with the world leaders, including those from Russia, China and India. If you were dealing with the United States, you'd better have made HIV a national priority, because we had.

And it was more than HIV. Six months ago, Tom Daschle, Mike Huckabee, John Podesta, Cindy McCain and I (yes, we five of different persuasions do work together!) went to Rwanda on a fact-finding trip.

Our visits with villagers all over the country opened our eyes to how Bush's five-year, $1.2 billion effort to combat malaria has provided 4 million insecticide-treated bed nets and 7 million life-saving drug therapies to vulnerable people. Yes, George Bush the healer.

Future historians will also note what today's pundits ignore: total US government development aid to Africa quadrupled from $1.3 billion in 2001 to more than $5 billion in 2008. What's more, the Bush administration doubled foreign aid worldwide over the past eight years. You have to go back to the Truman years to match that.

And the president revolutionized the way we give aid with the creation of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, now active in 35 countries. This $6.7 billion public-private partnership for the first time ties aid to accountability based on a country's governing well, fighting corruption and commitment to economic freedoms. iReport.com: Share your thoughts on Bush's legacy

Secondly, Bush healed abroad, but he also healed right here at home.

Before Bush acted, the nation's 43 million seniors did not have affordable access to prescription drugs (the most powerful tool a doctor has to prevent and treat disease) through the Medicare program. Today, because of George Bush, they do.

Initially, conservatives howled because the prescription drug initiative "cost too much." Liberals hated it because it involved the markets and competition. But today, 23 million seniors live healthier lives, Medicare drug spending has been 20 percent to 30 percent less than predicted for each of the past two years and seniors overwhelmingly give the program enthusiastic reviews.

And, in addition, the program is highly redistributive -- giving advantages the poorest, introducing preventive care to Medicare, encouraging electronic prescribing and introducing chronic disease management. Who says Republicans can't lead on heath reform?

Thirdly, a lot of people forget that the health of a nation's people is more dependent on behavior and education than on health services -- the doctors, hospitals and insurance companies. Infant mortality is three times higher for a woman who did not graduate from high school when compared with one who has a college degree.

And the president focused laser-like on improving K-12 education by demanding transparency and accountability, and raising expectations.

The U.S. ranks a miserable 21st in the world in science and 25th in math among 15 year-olds. President Bush made the education of our children a moral issue.

To maintain our now slipping global competitiveness, we have no choice but to radically transform the K-12 education system over the next decade. And historians will say it all began with the groundbreaking No Child Left Behind legislation of President Bush.

I've had the privilege of knowing George W. Bush personally and as president. I have seen his passions. Naturally, he will be judged in the short term for his role in waging the war on terror, keeping America safe since 9/11 and acting on his belief in promoting liberty aboard.

Over time, however, it is the foundations he laid for healing. for the most part ignored by mainstream media, that I am confident will be his enduring legacy.