Remarks at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Dinner in Brentwood, California - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Oct 2, 2000

And if he had been the Speaker and we'd been the majority in the Senate, we'd have a Patients' Bill of Rights. You know, that sounds like a good thing, but 18 million people a year have their medical care either denied or delayed, even though the doctors want to give it to the patients because the insurance industry and the HMO's don't want to do it--18 million people. We're talking about real people here, 22 million people who have jobs because of the things we've done together, new jobs.

So you're talking about--when you hear people talking about this, there are millions of older people who need to be able to buy medicine. You know, if you live to be 65 in America, your life expectancy is 82. And the young women in this audience, because of the human genome discoveries--those of you who will have babies over the next 10 years, at least by the end of that cycle, your babies will be born with a life expectancy of about 90 years.

Now, that's the good news. But what are we going to do to make those years meaningful? How are we going to keep people healthy in those years? How are we going to make those years not only living years but life-full years? And don't you think that somebody ought to be able to have good years, even if they're not 'rich when they turn 65? That's what this Medicare drug thing is all about.

You've got people out there, literally can't take medicine that has been prescribed for them without giving up what they had to spend on food today. So what I want you to understand is, these are big issues. One of the reasons that I want Al Gore to be elected is, in spite of all the people making fun of him and misrepresenting what he said about his role in the Internet, he understands the future, and he thinks about it.

All your medical records and your financial records are going to be on somebody's computer. Don't you think you ought to be able to say yes before somebody gets them? And if you get to say yes, how are we going to allow the Internet economy to continue to grow? Wouldn't you like somebody in the White House who understood that and thought about it all the time?

This is a magic moment. Believe me, the best stuff is still out there. And this is the last point I want to make. It's late, and I'm tired, and I'm jet-lagged. But I wanted to go back to what Kenny said, because Norm Mineta was riding with me up in northern California today, and he asked me why I did my politics the way I do, or how I came to be the way I am in public life.

And I said, "Well, when I was a little boy, I used to get on a bus two or three times a month and go about 80 miles down the road to my great uncle's house and sit out on the porch and listen to him talk. He had about a sixth grade education and about 180 IQ. And when I was a little boy, he used to say, 'Now, Bill, you just sit here, and when these people come up here, you listen to their stories, and you just remember everybody's got a story. And the poor man's story is about as good as a rich man's story and is not but a turn or two in life that makes a difference between one and the other.' And so I would sit there, year-in and year-out, and listen to that."