MR. FRATTO: Good morning, everyone; how are you all doing? We're on our way to Oklahoma City, where, as you know, the President will have a roundtable discussion this morning regarding health savings accounts. I have Julie Goon with us, from the National Economic Council, knows economic policy, Special Assistant to the President and, as I refer to her, as our White House health czar -- czarina. And she's going to give you a whole lot more on the event and answer any questions that you might have on it.

The President had his normal briefings this morning. He also taped the radio address. The topic for the radio address is the remembrance of 9/11 and the dedication of the Pentagon Memorial, and also discussion of the war on terror, and specifically with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan and the speech and announcement the President made earlier this week.

As you also know, our minds are very focused and the President, himself, is very focused on Hurricane Ike making its way through the Gulf right now -- and shortly, if it hasn't already begun, at least the winds hitting landfall in Texas. I think Dana talked to you yesterday about the President's video teleconference with Secretary Chertoff. The President spoke to Secretary Chertoff again this morning.

He also spoke to Administrator Paulison about how preparations for Hurricane Ike are proceeding. He's very comfortable that Texas emergency management authorities are doing everything they can. They have a very strong team down in Texas for dealing with the hurricanes. Obviously our thoughts and prayers are with the residents in the affected areas. The President encourages all the residents of Texas to listen to the guidance they're getting from their local emergency management authorities. And if they're getting direction to evacuate, to do it quickly; but just to pay very close mind to their personal safety and listen to the guidance of local emergency management officials.

The President will continue to receive updates during the day and when he returns back in Washington today keep as close as possible to events in Texas and -- obviously a part of the country you know that he knows very well.

As I mentioned earlier, at 9:40 a.m., the President participates in a roundtable on health savings account. The President will highlight how HSAs are giving Americans more control over their health care and helping businesses make health care more affordable and accessible for their employees.

At 11:25 a.m., the President attends a McCain Leadership Committee event and a Republican National Committee fundraiser. And just to clarify something -- I think on our schedule it was listed as a McCain for President event and, as you know, since we're in the post-convention period these fundraisers are for the McCain Leadership Committee, which is a joint committee and the funds are for state victory parties. And the RNC can give you more detail on the breakdown of where the money goes, but I just wanted to make sure for your reporting that it's identified correctly.

We have a number of officials traveling with us today, a number of members of Congress: Senator Coburn from Oklahoma, Representative Cole, Representative Fallin, Representative Frank Lucas, Representative John Sullivan, and Representative Dan Boren -- all from Oklahoma.

And then one thing on the President's arrival in Oklahoma at the airport, the President will be greeted by three volunteers -- and he'll have a chance to discuss this in front of the gathered press on the tarmac. And he'll recognize three volunteers, and let me just give you just a minute on each of these three, and we'll try to get some background information out for you that you can use.

Major Dan Rooney, who is an Oklahoma resident -- Dan founded the Folds of Honor Foundation. This is a group that provides educational funding to children and spouses of active duty military members that were killed or disabled in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dan did a lot of fundraising through the USGA and the PGA to raise money for scholarships for these families.

Karen Stark -- in 2004 Karen founded the Hugs Project. This is a group that provides homemade ties and other knitted accessories, like scarves and gloves, that go to servicemen and women of our military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The project has more than 1,800 volunteer members serving in every state and 41 countries. Volunteers with this project have sent out more than 500,000 ties and over 125 tons of care packages deployed to our service members.

And then finally, Captain Joe Castleberry. Joe is a 19-year veteran of the Oklahoma Sheriff's Office. Joe was in Oklahoma City when the Alfred P. Murrow building was bombed in 1995. And following the bombing he was inspired by the volunteer activity of Oklahoma City residents, and Joe went on to do volunteer work after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. He volunteered for a number of days in Louisiana and has pulled together 18 fellow deputies to go to Louisiana to deal with more recent storms. So we'll get you some more information on that. The President will have a chance to make some remarks when he lands.

For now, let me turn this over to Julie Goon who will give you a little bit more on the event today, and we'll trade places, and then I'll come back and give you the week ahead and answer whatever other questions you have. Julie. MS. GOON: Thank you, Tony. As all of you know, and as Tony said just a minute ago, with health care costs rising and people looking at what they're offering as benefits for their employees, this seemed like a good time to focus once again on the President's policies with respect to health care. He believes that we're reaching a point where we're either going to be doing more government-run health care where bureaucrats are making medical decisions for us, or we're going to move to something that's more consumer-driven, consumer-oriented, where patients and doctors actually have more control of their health care decisions and the health coverage decisions that guide their lives and that of their family.

Health savings accounts were established, as many of you know, in 2003 in the Medicare reform bill. They come along with a high-deductible health plan. They started being offered in 2004. In 2004 I think we had 1 million people sign up for these kinds of benefit packages. We're now up to 6.1 million in 2008. The growth has been fairly significant. And they provide a really good option, especially for small employers who are looking for ways to be competitive with how they get employees to come work for them, and yet find it often at times hard to offer employee benefits.

So a lot -- the fastest growing segment of health savings accounts has been the small employer community. This year, 1.8 million total small employers and their dependents are now in HSAs -- with HSA-eligible plans. That's up 72 percent from last year. The 1.8 million is not the total growth from last year, but that's the total number of people who work for small employers who are covered by HSAs now.

A third of new insurance coverage in the small group market in HSAs are people -- so a third of the small group market coverage in HSAs are people who previously did not have insurance, so this is also an option, you know, when employers haven't been able to offer coverage before -- they can look at the health savings account with a high-deductible plan; it has lower premiums than most HMO or PPO-type plans.

So as we were coming into this next open enrollment period for businesses, we were working with the Small Business Administration and the Treasury Department to develop an HSA website that would provide just general educational information about HSAs and HSA-eligible plans, in particular, for the small employer community.

SBA is launching that website this week. This is also the week that's the 20th anniversary of the Women's Business Ownership Act, which created women's business centers across the country that work with the Small Business Administration. So SBA wanted to do an event at one of their small business centers to showcase their new educational tools on their website, and also sit down and talk to some women entrepreneurs here in Oklahoma; three of whom have offered health savings account-type plans to their employees, and three of whom are interested in doing so.

So that's what the event is about today: to showcase how we're building on the success of HSAs since they passed in 2003; to provide information to small employers about these new -- these options as they go into open enrollment; and to talk to people here in Oklahoma about how this could possibly work for them and their employees.

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