Remarks to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute dinner

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 28, 1998

Let me also say we can't rest, with 160 million Americans in managed care plans, until we pass a strong, enforceable Patients' Bill of Rights that says doctors ought to make medical decisions, not accountants.

Think of this. Don't you believe whatever your health plan is that you ought to have the right to see a specialist if you need it? If you walk out of this banquet tonight and, God forbid, you get hit by a car, don't you think they ought to take you to the closest emergency room, not one halfway across town that happens to be covered by your plan?

Those of you who are older, remember what it was like when a child was first born into your family? How would you feel if, because the mother or the father is in a plan covered by a small business, if the small business changes health plans and you're 6 months pregnant, or your wife is 6 months pregnant? I think you ought to be able to keep the same doctor until the baby is born. But that's not what plans provide today. I think that ought to be a right.

If you've ever had anybody in your family in chemotherapy treatment, it's pretty tough. I've been there; a lot of you have. You try to make jokes about whether your hair is going to fall out. You try to deal with people when they get sick to their stomach and they can't eat. Nobody ought to have to worry, in addition to that, about whether in the middle of the chemotherapy treatment somebody is going to send you a letter in the mail and say, "I'm sorry, you've got to change doctors. You've got to do it all over again. You've got to start all over again." That is wrong. That is wrong, and we ought to stop it.

That's - we ought not to rest until we do. We ought not to rest while any of our communities are still segregated by income or race. The Government should lead the way in word and deed. I've asked Secretary Cuomo to crack down on unfair housing practices, to double the number of housing discrimination cases, to work with you to undertake a major legislative overhaul so public housing will help to deconcentrate poverty, mix incomes, and thereby mix people of all races and ethnicities. We can t live together as one nation unless we're able to live together in our own communities, And I ask you to help me work together on this.

We can't rest until every neighborhood can reap the benefits of our economic growth. That's why we should fund the empowerment initiatives the Vice President and Secretary Cuomo have worked so hard for, to get more investment, more jobs, and more opportunity into the neighborhoods which still have unemployment rates that are too high and incomes that are too low. We can do it now. If we can't do it now, with unemployment rates so low, when will we ever be able to do it? We should not walk away from this session of Congress without that empowerment agenda.

We should be proud that we have the lowest welfare rolls in 29 years, that we made good on our promise to restore some benefits to legal immigrants.

But there is much more to be done. The pressures to move from welfare to work are intense, and the transition can be especially difficult for Hispanic women who lack language or job skills. I want to make sure every individual has the tools to succeed in this transition. That's why we fought for a welfare-to-work fund in the balanced budget, to help people make it; for $50 million more for transportation for people who don't have cars. And that's why I have proposed in my balanced budget a $21 billion child care initiative to add to what we fought for in the welfare bill. Nobody should have to give up being a good parent to succeed in the work place.