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PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
�PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
�THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
October 27, 1993
For Immediate Release
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AND THE FIRST LADY
ON DELIVERING THE If HEALTH SECURITY ACT OF 1993"
TO CONGRESS
Statuary Hall
U.S. Capitol
Washington, D.C.
11: 25 A.M. EDT
MRS. CLINTON: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I come
to the podium really to thank all' of you. I want to thank the
Speaker and Majority Leader Gephardt, Minority Leader Michel. I want
to thank Majority Leader Mitchell, and Minority Leader Dole. I want
to thank all of the members in both Houses and their staffs for an
extraordinary amount of work, advice and counsel. And I appreciate
beyond being able to express the strong commitment that so many of
you bring to this debate.
This will be, for the next months, an opportunity for
all of us to work together, to go beyond politics as usual, to make
it clear to the American people that this/President and this Congress
hear them and are committed to solving their problems in a very'real
way.
This bill is the result of literally thousands of'
people, many of whom are in this room and represented here7 but many
who are not, who are allover this country who have shared their
stories, who have written letters, who have button-holed their
members of Congress or a Cabinet secretary to talk about what needed
to be done.
What we have attempted in this bill is to put in one
place comprehensively the pieces of the health care plan. If we had
attempted to merely repeal pieces of other legislation or make
amendments to them, or if we had decided that we would not include in
this such matters as public health, which are critical to a reformed
health care plan, we would have been able, of course, to produce a
smaller bill that would not had quite as many pages, but would not
have had in one place everything that you will have to consider as
you move forward.
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We have also made decisions that some matters belong in
this bill, such as the benefits package. Others who have
alter::1e. ~_':,~ have determined that that is something that should De
left to a later day and a body other than this Congress. We've put
it into this bill. I don't know how many thousands of pages would be
replaced or repealed with the passage of a bill with these features
covered in it, but it would go into the tens of thousands. We are
trying to have a document with the presentation of this bHl that
will give us a framework off of which to work •
I especially want to thank the members of the Cabinet
who are here and their extraordinary staff for the analytical work
that has been done to prepare this bill. And we offer the services
as would be obvious to work with members of Congress and committees
to analyze other bills and alternatives with the same level of
analytical dimension and economic analysis as has been brought to
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this bill, becaus~ if we are to have the kind of honest and open
debate that we know we need, we have to hold every possible proposal
and plan to the highest level of scrutiny to determine what it would
really mean and how it would really work in the lives of Americans.
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That's what we owe the American people. That's what we
have 'attempted to do in this bill, knowing we have literally no pride
of authorship on many of the details and technical aspects of it.
That we leave to the legislative process with whom we look forward to
working. But we do have an historic opportunity •
"
Many of you, Republicans and Democrats, who have worked
and worried over health care for years, have told me that the one
thing that stood in the way.of your being able to do whatever it is
you thought was best was you did not have a President committed to
seeing that through. I can tell you we have a President committed-to
seeing that through. (Applause.)
And what this President and I and all who have worked on
this look forward to is a vigorous, honest debate that sheds light
and not just heat, and which is rooted in what is really happening in
our country.' And I am absolutely confident that if we do that, then
in this Congress, in this next year, we will meet again to sign the
kind of bill that the majority of us will be proud to have been a
part of.
Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
SPEAKER FOLEY: Long before he made the decision to seek
the high office which he now holds, the President emphasized the
importance of health care reform for the American people. From the
time of the campaign to the inauguration, and every week and month
since then, the President has reiterated time and time again how
central the solution of this problem is to the welfare and economic,
as well as personal and social, of the American people. He has
provided the leadership clea.r and unfailing to bring this legislation
to the congress. He will provide the leadership in the coming months
to see it enacted until, as many have said, that happy day arrives
when the Health Security Act of 1994 is signed by the President of
the United states, william Jefferson Clinton.
I'm proud to present you now the President.
(Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: ,Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker, Senator Mitchell, Senator Dole, Congressman Gephardt, .
Congressman Michel. To all the distinguished members of the Congress
from both Houses and both parties who are here today, I thank you for
your presence and your continuing interests. I thank you for giving
Hillary and me the opportunity to come here to Statuary ~all.
This has been a remarkable process. I can never
remember a time in which so many members of Congress from both
parties and both Houses had so consistent and abiding commitment to
finding an answer to a problem that has alluded the country and the
Congress for a very long time.
'.
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,I want to thank the hundreds, indeed thousands, of
people who have worked on this process which has led to the bill. I
want to thank the literally hundreds of member.s of Congress who
attended the health care university recently -- an astonishing act of
outreach by a bipartisan majority of the united States Congress to
try to just come to grips with the enormous complexity and challenge
of this issue •
. I believe the Health security Act, which I am here to
deliver, holds the promise of a new era of security for every
American and is an important building block in trying to restore the
kind of self-confidence that our country needs to face the future, to
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embrace the changes of the global economy, and to turn our nation
around. A nation which doe~ not guarantee all of its people health
care security at a time when the average lS-year-old will change jobs
eight times in a lifetime, and when the global economy is emerging in
patterns yet to be defined can hardly have·the confidence it needs to
proceed forward.
If our nation does that, I believe we will do as we
approach the 21st century what we have always done -- we will find a
way to adapt to the changes of this time; we will find a way to
compete and win; we will find a way to make strength out of all of
our diversity.
'
This legislation, therefore, literally holds the key to
a new era for our economy -- an era in which we can get our health
care costs under control; free our businesses to compete better in
the global economy; and make sure that the men and women who show up
for work every day are more productive because they're more secure,
and they feel that they can do two important jobs at once: be good
members of their family, be good parents, and good children and well
as good workers.
This is a test for all of us -- a test of whether the
leaders of this country can serve the people who sent us here and can
actually take action on an issue that, as tough and complex as it is,
is still absolutely central to moving us forward. And it is a test
that I believe we can all pass.
And so I have today just one simple request. I ask that
before the Congress finishes its work next year you pass and I sign a
bill. that will actually guarantee health security to every citizen of
this great country of ours. (Applause.)
The plan that we present today, as embodied in this book
as well as the bill, is very specific, it is very detailed, and it is
very responsible. And though we will debate many points -- and we
should debate many points -- let me just make clear to you the
central element of this plan that is most important to me. It
guarantees every single American a comprehensive package of health
benefits. And that, to me, is the most important thing. A
comprehensive package of health care benefits that are always there
and they can never be taken away. That is the bill I want to sign.
That is my bottom line. I will not support or sign a bill that does
not meet that criteria. That is what we owe the American people.
(Applause.)
.
NOW, as we enter this debate, which I very much look
forward to, I ask that we keep some things in mind. First of all,
when we debate something that the administration recommends or
something some of you recommend, and it seem bewildering in its
complexity, I ask that it be compared against what we have now,
because none of us could devise a system more complex, more
burdensome, more administratively costly than the one we have now.
Let us all judge ourselves against, after all, what it is we are
attemptir.g tdchange.
Secondly, I ask that we follow the admonition that
Senator Dole laid for us -- let us all ask ourselves as clearly as we
can, who wIns, who loses, why is the society better off, and how much'
does it cost or save. And if we know, let us say. And if don't
know, let us frankly admit that we may not know the answer to every
question.
We have gotten in a lot of trouble as a nation, I think
-- and I see Senator Domenici, one of our great budget experts
nodding his head -- pretending that we could know the answer to some
things that we don't know the answer to. We have tried to be as
conservative as we could here in making sure that we have not
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overclaimed for cost savings or overestimated how small the cost of
things will be. Therefore, t think we have in our plan put more
money in than it will cost to implement this plan -- but better to be
wrong on that side than the other side. We have really worked hard
here. And I think we must all do that •.
Thirdly, I think we should all say what are the
principles that animate this debate. For us, the principles are
simple -- they're the ones I outlined in my address to Congress, but
let me briefly state them again. They are security, over and above
everything; simplicity -- the system we create must be simpler than
the one we have; savings -- we cannot continue to spend for what we
have 40 percent more than any other country and much more than that
over and above what our major competitors, Germany and Japan, spend
to cover fewer people; quality -- we must not ask any American to
give up the quality of health care; choice -- people have to have
choice in the private system of health care. Our plan would provide
more choices to most Americans and fewer choices to none. And there
must be responsibility -- to pretend that we can control the costs
and take this system where it ought to go without asking more
Americans to assume more personal responsibility is not realistic.
We have too many choices -- costs in our system that are the direct
result of personal decisions made by the American people that lead to
rampant inflation based on personal irresponsibility. And we have to
tell the American people that and be willing to honestly and
forthrightly debate it.
'
NOW, our plan guarantees comprehensive benefits and
focuses on keeping people healthy as well as treating them when
they're sick by providing primary and preventive care. It reduces
paperwork by simplifying the forms that. have to be dealt with by
doctors, by hospitals, by people with insurance. And that's
important. We know -- every one of us can agree on at least this:
that the paperwork in this system costs at least a dime on the dollar
more than any of our major competitors pay. We must deal with this.
That's a dime on a dollar on a $900-bil1ion health care system. We
can't justify that. It has nothing to do with keeping people well or.
helping them when they are sick.
We have to crack down on fraud. We know our system
today is so complex we waste tens of billions of dollars in
fraudulent medical expenses that we can change.
We ought to help small and medium-sized businesses,
self-employed people and family farmers to have access to the same
market power in holding their costs down that big·business and
government have today.
I agree with senator Dole or whoever it was that said
this term "alliance" sounds foreboding, but an alliance is basically
a group of small and medium-sized businesses and self-employed people
and farmers designed to give them the same bargaining power in the
health care market that only the government and big business has
today. We must do that. We cannot expect people to be at that kind
of disajvdntage, espeCially since many of them are creating most of
the new jobs for the American economy.
.
.We should, and we do, protect our cherished right to
choose our doctors. Indeed, we try to increase choices for most
Americans. Most workers insured in the workplace have now not very
many choices about what kind of health care they receive -- only
about one in three have choices. Under our plan, all workers would
have more choices in the kind of health care they receive, without
charging their employers more for the workers having the option to
make that choice.
We preserve and strengthen Medicare. We give small
businesses a discount on the cost of insurance. We invest more in
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medical research and high-quality care. We must never sacrifice
that. That's something we want America to spend more on than any
other country. We get something for it. It's an important part of
our economy and an important part of our security. We should
continue to do that.
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Our plan rejects broad-based taxes, but does ask
everyone not paying into the system that is still there for them when
they need it to pay in accordance with their ability to pay. Two
thirds of the funds ,that finance this entire system come from asking
people who can access the system today, who have money but don't pay
a nickel for it, to pay their fair share. And I think we ought to do
that. It's not right for people to avoid their responsibility and
then access the system that the rest of the American people pay for,
and they pay too much because too many people don't pay anything at
all.
So these are the fundamental elements of our plan, of
this bill. But above all, it guarantees true health care security.
It means if you lose your job, you're covered; if you move, you're
covered: if you leave your job to start a small business, you're
covered. It means if you or a member of your family get sick, you're
covered, even if it's a life-threatening illness. It means if you
develop a long-term illness, because you will be in broad-based
community rating systems, you will still be able to work. It' means
that the disabled community in America, full of people, millions of
them, who could be in the work force today, will now be able to work
and contribute and earn money and pay taxes because they will be in a
health care system' that will not burden their employers or put' their
employers at undue risk.
That's what security means. It means that we will, in
other words, be able to make the most of the potential of every
working American who wishes to work during the time they can work.
It is a huge, huge economic benefit in that sense.
Every nation with which we compete has achieved this.
Only the United States has failed to do so. We are now going to be
given a chance to do it. And I think we must: and I think we will.
(Applause. )
I want to reiterate what I have said so many times. I
have no pride of authorship, nor do I wish this to be a partisan
endeavor or victory. We have tried to draw on the best ideas put
forth over the last 60 years by both Democrats and Republicans. This
bill reflects the sense of responsibility that President Roosevelt
tried to put forward when he asked if the Social Security program
includes health care. It reflects the vision of Harry Truman, the
first President to put forward a plan for national health care
reform. It reflects the pragmatic approach that President Nixon took
in 1972 when he asked all American employers to take responsibility
for providing health care for their employees.
It embodies the ideas, the commitment of generations of
congressional l0adnro who fought to build a health care system that
honors our nation's responsibilities, and who have tried to learn to
how we might use the mechanisms of the marketplace and the
competition forces that have helped us in so many other areas to work
in the health care arena.
This is a uniquely American solution. It builds on the
existing private sector system. It responds to market forces. It
attempts to do what I think we should all be asking ourselves whether
welre doing -- it attempts to fix what's wrong and keep what's right.
And that ought to be our guiding star, all of us, as we enter this
debate.
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I think by guaranteeing comprehensive benefits and high
quality, and allowing most people to get their coverage the way they
do now, leaving important personal decisions about health care where
they belong -- between patients and doctors -- we have done what we
can to do keep what is right.
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I think by asking'people ~ho don't pay now to be
responsible by simplifying the system, by cracking down on fraud, by
making sure we minimize regulations, we are taking a long step toward
doing what is necessary to fix what is wrong, to improve quality and
hold down costs •
,
All of the alternatives that will be debated, I ask only
what I have already said. Let us measure ourselves against the
present system and the costof'doing nothing. Let us honestly
compare our ideas with one another and ask who wins, who loses, and
how much does it cost. And let us see whether we are meeting the
guiding principles which ought to drive this process.
. But when it is over, we must have achieved comprehensive
health care security for all Americans, or the endeavor will not have
been ,worth the effort. That is what we owe the American people. And
let me say again, the most expensive thing we can do is nothing. The
present system we have is the most complex, the most bureaucratic,
the most mind-boggling system imposed on any people on the face of
the earth. The present system we have has the highest rate of
inflation with the lowest rate of return.' The present system we have
is hemorrhaging, losing 100,000 people a month permanently from the
health insurance system; two million people every month newly become
uninsured, the rest of them get it back. They are never secure.
The present system we have has an indefinable impact on
workers in the workplace, wondering what will happen if they lose
their health insurance. What does that do to their productivity, to
their self-confidence, to their family life?
The present system we have is eating up the wage
increases that would otherwise flow to millions of American workers
every year because money has to go to pay more for the same health
care. The present system we have, I would remind you, my fellow
Democrats and Republicans, is larg~ly responsible for the impasse we
had over the last budget, and the fights we had.
Look what we did. We diminished defense as much as we
should, and some of us are worried about whether we did a little more
than we should. We froze domestic spending, discretionary spending
for five years, when all of us know we should be spending more in
certain investment areas to help us convert from a defense to a
domestic economy and put people back to work in our cities and our
distressed urban areas. We froze it. (Applause.)
We raised a good bit of taxes. And even though over 99
percent of the money came from people at the highest income group,
nobody in this Congress wanted to raise as much money as we did.
Why? BecauS9 we passed a budget, after doing all of that, in which
Medicaid is going up at 16 percent a year next year, declining -
declining to an increase of 11 percent a year in the fifth year;
Medicare is going up at 11 percent a year next year, declining to
nine percent a year in the fifth year of our budget.
That's why we did that. We could have had a bipartisan
solution, liCkety-split, giving the'American people a plan that would
have reduced the deficit and increased investment in putting the
American people back to work if we were not choking on a health care
system that is not working. (Applause.)
NOW, I don't know about you, but I don't ever want us to
go through that again. That is not good for the Congress, it is not
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good for the country, it is not good for the public interest. And
the most important thing is we can't give the American people what
they need. They want to be rewarded for their work. They want to
know if they're asked to go back to school, if they're asked to
embrace the challenges of expanded trade, if they're asked to compete
and win in a global marketplace -- that if they do what they're
supposed to do, they'll be rewarded. They want to know.that they can
be good parents and good workers. They want to know if they get
sick, but they're still health enough to work, they won't have to
quit because of the insurance system. They want to know if they're
disabled physi~ally or if they have had a bout with mental illness or
they've dealt with any other thing that can be managed, that they can.
still be productive citizens. And the bizarre thing is that we could
do all this and still have a system that is more efficient and wastes
less than the .one we've got.
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So I ask you, let's start with this bill and start with
this plan, and give the American people what they deserve -
comprehensive universal coverage. That's what we got hired to do
to solve the problems of the people and to take this country into the
21st century.
Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
END
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11 : 52 A. M. EDT
�
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Lissa Muscatine - Press Office
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Lissa Muscatine
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1993 - 1997
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<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36239" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
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2011-0415-S
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<p>Lissa Muscatine first served in the Clinton Administration as a speechwriter. Within the First Lady’s Office, she served as Communications Director to the First Lady.</p>
<p>Lissa Muscatine’s records consist of materials from First Lady Hillary Clinton’s Press Office, highlighting topics such as health care, women’s rights, the Millennium Council, Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, and deal extensively with press interviews given by the First Lady; her domestic and foreign travel; and speeches and remarks, on a wide variety of topics, given by her before and during her time as First Lady. The records include interview transcripts, press releases, speeches and speech transcripts.</p>
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Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
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1,324 folders in 27 boxes
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FLOTUS Statements and Speeches 9/21/93 - 11/22/93 [Binder]: [Presentation of Health Security Act 10/27/1993]
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<a href="http://clintonlibrary.gov/assets/Documents/Finding-Aids/Systematic/2011-0415-S-Muscatine.pdf" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="http://catalog.archives.gov/id/7431941" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
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2011-0415-S-flotus-statements-and-speeches-9-21-93-11-22-93-binder-presentation-of-health-security-act-10-27-1993
7431941