[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1992, Book I)]
[June 2, 1992]
[Pages 877-879]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the Health Care Equity Action League Briefing

June 2, 1992
    Please be seated, and thank you very much for coming. And Dirk, 
thank you, sir, and Pam, the cochairs of HEAL. I am delighted to have an 
opportunity to speak to you briefly here. And then our experts come on 
and you'll learn--I wouldn't say more than you want to know about this, 
but you'll be hearing from our very best in a few minutes, people that 
have shaped our approach to health care.
    We are grateful for your support. I'll tell you, the strong support 
of this organization for our health care reform plan is absolutely 
essential to getting something done for the people in this country. I 
can't overemphasize the importance of your contacts on the Hill today, 
of your organizing of the local coalitions. Both of these efforts are 
going to be determining factors in steering health care reform in the 
right direction.
    We're at a crossroads, literally, at a crossroads on the issue of 
health care reform.

[[Page 878]]

The real debate concerns the direction that health care reform is going 
to take. I don't think there's any argument in the country that health 
care reform is not needed. Nobody's taking that tack. The question is, 
will we preserve our public-private health care system through 
comprehensive reforms or are we going to substitute a plan that is 
Government-dictated, Government-mandated, Government-controlled? That's 
the bottom line. We have to spell out as clearly for the American public 
as we possibly can: The decision is as simple and as pivotal as that.
    We have to make it clear to Americans that other proposals like the 
national health care, expanded Medicare, Americare, and ``play or pay'' 
are fundamentally Government-controlled. Some are a little more obvious 
about it than others, but ultimately each ends up controlled by a 
Government bureaucracy.
    Let me also assure you that I share your specific concerns. 
Individual entrepreneurs need help in order to compete with the 
conglomerates; I understand that. You need a tax deduction for 100 
percent of health insurance premiums, and you need market clout. As 
small business owners you also need rescuing from cherry picking by 
these insurers, and you need help in shopping smart, and you need a way 
to avoid costly frivolous coverage. Our plan provides comprehensive 
reform, and that's going to benefit, we compute, more than 95 million 
Americans.
    We have two bills on the Hill already. These are nonpolitical; that 
is, the liberals agree with us in principle; that makes them 
nonpolitical. [Laughter] That being the case, I say Congress ought to 
act according to principle and pass this legislation for the good of the 
country. Where we agree, we must act. With your help up on the Hill, 
Congress will pass the bills immediately.
    Under our plan, health insurers would have to cover all employers 
requesting coverage, and that coverage would be guaranteed. It would be 
renewable, and it would have no restrictions for preexisting medical 
conditions. It would also be portable, allowing workers to change jobs 
without fear of not being picked up by their new employer's plan. We 
would establish networks that would help small businesses purchase 
insurance and manage their premium costs. Our coordinated care 
provisions would reverse the upward spiral of health care costs, too.
    Our plan also addresses something that we must do something about, 
and I'm talking about the malpractice costs, costs from excessive 
insurance paperwork, and also administrative costs. We address the 
special needs of urban and rural areas by providing for clinics and 
disease prevention activities.
    In addition, we think consumers need better information in order to 
make better decisions. So we propose information booklets that will 
allow consumers to compare costs and then compare the quality of care 
provided by hospitals and other health care plans. These are things that 
I think that we all can whole-heartedly endorse and fully intend to 
implement.
    But no discussion of health care reform is complete without 
emphasizing the necessity for personal responsibility for health 
promotion and then again for disease prevention. Tomorrow, Secretary Lou 
Sullivan, along with Prevention magazine, will announce the results of a 
survey on the health-related behavior of Americans. The prevention index 
tracks our national progress in avoiding special specific health-related 
risk behavior. We need your help in spreading the word that avoiding 10 
common risk factors could prevent between 40 and 70 percent of all 
premature deaths, one-third of all cases of acute disability, and two-
thirds of all cases of chronic disability. Individual action, that's 
what is needed around the Nation, at the level of personal health 
behavior.
    At the same time, up here, right back to Washington, congressional 
action is needed to ensure that world-class health care continues to be 
directed by consumer choice and by free-market factors.
    There's a crying need to change things. But I feel compelled to 
uphold the quality of American health care. We must not, in our desire 
to see change, diminish the quality of American health care. Our plan, I 
think, upholds the quality. Very candidly, I think the major two 
competing plans would tend to diminish the quality of American health 
care. We've seen it happen in some

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of these nationalized programs abroad, and I think the same thing would 
happen here. So we must not go for a program that is going to diminish 
the quality of American medical care.
    So again, Dirk and Pam, thank you. We are very grateful for your 
leadership and helping to make all this happen. And to each and every 
one of you, my most sincere thanks. I really believe we can get 
something done, and I say that, recognizing that this is a weird year. 
[Laughter] This is what they call one of the weird ones out there. But 
when you have a commonsense idea, when you have something that is backed 
by the sound and sensible people like yourselves, we've got to find a 
way to make it happen. So I pledge you my full support. My driving 
interest behind this really can be brought to bear in the Congress in 
ways that our pros here in the front row think necessary. So I am with 
you and very, very grateful to you.
    Now, on for your real session where you're going to learn a lot more 
about it. Thank you all very much for coming.

                    Note: The President spoke at 2:09 p.m. in Room 450 
                        of the Old Executive Office Building. In his 
                        remarks, he referred to Dirk Vander Dongen, 
                        chairman, and Pam Bailey, executive director, 
                        Health Care Equity Action League.