Remarks to Democratic congressional leaders and an exchange with reporters: January 14, 1998

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Jan 19, 1998

Health Care Bill of Rights

The President. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Thank you, Mr. Gephardt, Senator Daschle. Mr. Bowles, thanks for hanging around. That will minimize our health care bills around here, I can assure you. [Laughter] I thank the Members of Congress for being here, and Deputy Secretary Higgins and Secretary Shalala. I'd like to especially thank two Members who are here, Congressman Dingell and Congressman Stark, for their leadership on this vitally important issue.

If I could, just very briefly, I'd like to put this issue into the larger context of what we're doing as a nation at this moment in history. If you look at the history of America, I think it's fair to say that we have not only survived, but prospered and grown increasingly stronger over 200 years because we have found a way, at every moment of challenge and change, to make the adjustments necessary to preserve our enduring values in a new set of circumstances. And we have done it by strengthening our Union and by applying the elemental principles of the Constitution and the fundamental values of the country to a new time. That's essentially what we're being called upon to do today.

I have said for 6 years now that, to me, all of our policies should be able to be explained in terms of three words: opportunity for all, responsibility from all, and a community that includes all Americans. Now, we know that because of the changes we're undergoing in the way people work and live and relate to each other and the rest of the world, the way all our major systems work because of globalization and the revolution in information and technology, that we are having to systematically reform virtually every major institution of society.

We've dramatically reformed the way the Government works. It's as small as it was - now - when President Kennedy was here. I would argue it's doing more with greater impact in a positive way. We're in the process of trying to create a system of lifetime learning in America, opening doors of college to all Americans and raising the standards of our schools and trying some different things that have not been previously done before.

We're trying to help people balance work and family. That's what the Family and Medical Leave Act was all about, and raising the minimum wage and the earned-income tax credit, and all those things. We're trying to make sure we can preserve the economy - preserve the environment while we grow the economy. And I would argue that we've demonstrated with a different approach you can do both things quite well. But all of this requires, anyway, a sense of purpose, to make sure that nobody gets left behind and that we really do change our institutions that protect the public interest as circumstances change.

That's basically what all these stories are about. I mean, the story that Mr. Gephardt told from the movie "As Good as it Gets," that I remember very well, too, is basically a story of a hard-working woman who's doing everything she's been asked to do by this country, gets up every day, goes to work, doesn't make a lot of money, obeys the law, does her best to take care of her kid, has done what she thought was right to provide health insurance to her child, and the system is not working for her. That means that we have not succeeded in reform. Yes, we've made a lot of progress in health care reform, but we've got a long way to go.

I think we were right to propose to extend Medicare coverage to people who can buy into it who are over 62 and have lost their health insurance or people who are over 55 who have been downsized or promised health care that they didn't get from their companies. I think that's important.

But this is really important. Why? Because so many people are in managed care and there are so many stories like the one that Senator Daschle told. And again, I would say to you, to me this can - what we should do can be answered in terms of those three little words I've tried to drill into the American consciousness for 3 years. You say to managed care people, okay, we have to reorganize the health care market, and you want the opportunity to sell your policies. Okay, you have that opportunity. You now have the responsibility to make sure when you sell a policy to somebody, they get quality health care. And we have to have an American community that's as healthy as possible. So it hurts us all if people are shelling out money for health insurance policies and they and their children can't get the right kind of health care. We are all diminished by the story that Tom Daschle just told. That's not the America we want to live in. That's not the America we want to represent. That's not the America we want to lift up to the rest of the world. Now, that's what this is all about.

So I know there will be objections to this, but there are objections to every time you want to make a fundamental change. You know, there were objections to our efforts to get the budget under control. The deficit was supposed to be $357 billion this year when I took office. It's going to be less than $23 billion, and next year we'll offer a balanced budget - I mean, I'll offer one this year for next year, and we'll have it. There are always objections to anything you do. But the point is, we couldn't go on doing what we were doing because it was unacceptable. It violated our notions of responsibility, we were depriving too many people of opportunity, and we were clearly undermining the future strength of our American community.