    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [October 3, 1993]
    [Pages 1648-1652]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Community in Sacramento, California
    October 3, 1993

        Thank you very much. Thank you for coming. Thank you for being here.
    Thank you for doing what you have done for the United States. It's
    wonderful to be here. It's wonderful to be in Sacramento, and it's great
    to be at McClellan, and I thank you for all being here with me today.
        I'd like to say a special word of thanks to General Phillips and the
    people at this base for the work they have done and the work they did
    with your Mayor and others to keep this base alive. You are a good
    testimony to the wisdom of that decision, and I thank you for that.
        I also want to thank General Yates, the Commander of the Air Force
    Materiel Division, for flying all the way across the country to be with
    us today. And I want to tell you one thing, he made a real sacrifice
    because this is his birthday, and I thank him for spending it with us
    today.
        I want to say, also, a special word of thanks to Congressman
    Hamburg, Congressman Matsui, and Congressman Fazio----

    [At this point, audience members interrupted the President's remarks.]

        You all ignore them. They don't want you to hear, but you want to
    hear it. Just come on. Most people in this country still believe in free
    speech. That's one of the things worth fighting for. I also want to say
    a very special word of thanks to these Members of Congress who have
    supported our efforts to deal with the problems of America.
        I got interested in making that long and challenging race for
    President because I was worried

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    about three things: I thought this country was coming apart when it
    ought to be coming together; I thought we were going in the wrong
    direction economically and we risked losing the American dream for
    millions of young people; and I thought that politics had become a
    sideshow of shouting words, instead of an instrument by which the
    American people could forthrightly face their problems and do something
    about it.
        I am reminded, too, on this day, because of the events in Moscow and
    in Somalia, that we still live in a dangerous world. And I ask you to
    take just a few moments, once again, to quietly express your support for
    the people who are fighting for freedom in Russia and for the brave men
    and women in our Armed Forces, including those in Somalia today who lost
    their lives in a very successful mission against brutality and anarchy.
    My deepest condolences go to the families and the friends of those brave
    young Americans, and I know that all of you support them, as well.
        One of the hardest things we have had to learn as a people, in the
    last few years, is that there is now no longer an easy division between
    our national security at the end of the cold war abroad and our economic
    and social security here at home. There's no longer an easy division
    between foreign policy and domestic policy, and it is perfectly clear to
    everyone now that if we are not strong at home, we cannot continue to
    lead the world. And so I have done what I could to help us to become
    stronger at home.
        That means, as much as anything else, as we attempt to revive this
    economy, we have got to focus on the economy of California, the State
    which has 12 percent of our Nation's people but 25 percent of our
    Nation's unemployed. It is clear to me that we must take this problem
    which has developed for you over a period of years and go after it with
    a vengeance, step by step, with discipline and concentration.
        This last week, in Washington, we made several announcements which
    mean more jobs and a brighter future for California. Last week, the Vice
    President and I announced that the United States, in recognition of the
    end of the cold war, would remove export controls on 70 percent of the
    computers and supercomputers made in the United States. That will
    increase exports by billions and tens of billions of dollars. It means
    more jobs for California. In this State, that order frees up $30 billion
    of exports in computers, $2 billion in telecommunications, and $5
    billion in supercomputers. In a State where one in 10 jobs depends on
    exports, that is very good news, indeed.
        Last week, I also announced a plan to help our shipbuilders to be
    more competitive in the global economy. There are 124,000 Americans
    employed in shipbuilding, many of them in California, in places like the
    Nasco plant in San Diego. This plan will help them get access to foreign
    markets which they deserve and which they have been denied for too long.
        And last week, with so many people in this country desperate for
    work and knowing we have to find a way to help create jobs through
    supporting the environment, something you've done here, we announced a
    ground-breaking research plan involving our defense labs, our military
    facilities, and the Big Three automakers to triple the fuel efficiency
    of our automobiles within a decade, creating tens of thousands of new
    jobs for Americans.
        Earlier this year we announced a project very important to the
    future of this area, a technology reinvestment program to convert
    defense technology either to dual uses, defense and commercial, or
    purely commercial uses, something you are doing here. We have received,
    in return for what will soon be about $1 billion in Federal matching
    money, over 2,800 proposals. And guess what? Twenty-five percent of them
    came from the State of California. That means more jobs for California.
        Tomorrow I know that Congressman Fazio and others will release the
    details of a new joint partnership between the Government and automakers
    to develop and produce electric cars, taking advantage of dual-use
    technology right here at McClellan. That means more jobs for California
    and a brighter future for America.
        And let me thank you, especially here at McClellan, for the
    partnership you have formed with the Environmental Protection Agency and
    the California EPA. By streamlining Government and working together, you
    have performed a cleanup that, under the old rules, would have taken 6
    years and $10 million. You did it in 8 weeks at a fifth of the cost. And
    we intend to do that all over America, copying your leadership.
        Let me say to you, my fellow Americans, my biggest task as your
    President is to try to clearly define the time in which we live, point
    the way to positive change, and give the American

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    people the security they need to make those changes. We cannot, any of
    us in our personal lives, in our family lives, and in our communities,
    make changes we need to make unless we are personally secure enough to
    make them. But we cannot deny the changes that are abroad in the world
    and pretend that they're not there.
        When I leave you and walk back into this hangar, I will see some of
    the work that is being done here in McClellan to develop dual-use
    technologies. That means that the people here have decided that change
    will be our friend and not our enemy. When faced with a time of profound
    change, we can take one of two courses. We can hunker down, turn away,
    and pretend it's not there, and that works about one time in 100. Most
    of the time, you know as well as I do, when you see profound change and
    you want to preserve what is most important in your values, your family,
    your community, you have to find a way to make that change your friend.
    That is what this administration is dedicated to doing, both in trying
    to change the rules of the economic game and in trying to open up a new
    era of time when Americans who work hard and play by the rules have a
    certain basic security.
        Yes, I think we ought to change our economic policies. We are giving
    this country the toughest trade policy it's had in years and years,
    demanding access to our markets. Yes, we cannot continue to have massive
    trade deficits with the Far East, where 40 percent of our exports are
    going. And yes, I favor opening up trade to Mexico and ultimately to
    Latin America because we have a trade surplus there and its means more
    jobs for Americans. I do favor it.
        But let me say something. If you listen to the people who are
    opposed to the trade agreement, they have some very good arguments, but
    they're arguing against things that happened for the last 12 years.
    They're arguing against the insecurity of the times our people have
    faced and the fact that our Government has not responded to them. And so
    we have sought to give the American people more security by bringing
    this deficit down, which threatens our children and grandchildren; by
    changing the tax laws so that working families with children in the
    home, without regard to their incomes, will be lifted above poverty so
    there will never be an excuse to stay on welfare because work will be
    rewarded for people; but by reforming the student loan program so that
    we lower the interest rates and string out the repayment terms and make
    college available to every American for the first time; by giving tens
    of thousands of our young people the chance to serve their country in
    their community through a program of national service that will also
    enable them to earn credit against a college education or other
    education and training.
        Yes, security is important, and we have other challenges before us,
    as well. If you look at the number of people who have been killed in
    this country just in the last month in drive-by shootings and mindless
    acts of violence, and you consider the fact that this is the only
    advanced country in the world where children can be in cities with no
    supervision, no support, roaming the streets, better armed than the
    police because we refuse to take automatic weapons out of their hands or
    pass the Brady bill, or check on it, that is wrong, and we must change
    that. We must change that.
        But, my fellow Americans, at the root of so much of our security is
    the fact that we are living in a changing economy where the average
    young worker will change jobs eight times in a lifetime; where more and
    more, when people lose their jobs and they go on unemployment--it's not
    the way it was when I was young, where people would go on unemployment
    for 4 weeks or 8 weeks and then they'd get their old job back. Now most
    people get another job, but it's a different job. So we don't need an
    unemployment system anymore, we need a reemployment system to retrain
    our workers for the jobs that are there and for the future.
        More than anything else, if you look to the heart now of our Federal
    budget deficit, if you look to the heart now of the economic problems of
    many of our leading exporters, and if you look to the heart of the
    gnawing insecurity that grips hardworking American families, you will
    find lurking behind it all the most expensive, least efficient health
    care system in the entire Western world.
        Only in America--only in America do we spend over 14 percent of our
    income on health care--Canada's at 10, Germany and Japan below 9--going
    up more rapidly than any other country; going up twice as fast as
    inflation. And we still leave 35 million people, 35 million permanently
    without health insurance, 2 million more every month, another 100,000
    every month permanently losing their health insurance.
        Only in America do we have 1,500 separate

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    insurance companies writing thousands of different policies, creating
    mountains of different paperwork and always, always looking for ways not
    to cover the people who bought their insurance. That only happens in
    this country.
        Only in America are the doctors who hired out to keep people well
    and help people who are sick spending more and more countless hours,
    some of them as much as 25 hours a week now, filling out forms and
    paperwork. Only in America has that happened. Only in America have, in
    the last 10 years, we seen the work of clerical workers in the hospitals
    grow at 4 times the rate of new doctors and health care providers. That
    is not happening anywhere else.
        Why? Because while we have the finest doctors and nurses and
    technology and research in the world, we have a system of financing and
    delivering health care that is a nightmare. It is a nightmare for people
    who have lost their health insurance. It is a nightmare for people who
    don't get it. It's a nightmare for people who have to depend on the
    Government to get theirs, when not all the providers will cover
    Medicaid. It has been bad. And guess what? It is the primary cause of
    the exploding Federal deficit. It is the primary cause of many of our
    biggest companies' inability to compete more overseas. It is the primary
    cause that millions of American workers will not get a raise between now
    and the end of the decade because all the new profits of the companies
    that are trying to cover their health care will go into the exploding
    cost of premiums. And only in America do we spend 10 cents on the dollar
    in a $900 billion health care bill on paperwork that no other country
    has.
        I say to you, my fellow Americans, it's time to give the American
    people health care that is always there, health care that can never be
    taken away, health care that is simpler and better.
        Now, you know, since we're here at this magnificent air base, let me
    just ask you something: Can you think of a single institution in this
    country in the last 10 years, in the midst of all the chaos and social
    breakdown and violence and family troubles in America, is there any
    institution that has worked better than the United States military to
    train and educate people to perform missions, to continually give people
    new skills, and to provide the coherence that we need? And is there any
    institution that's done a better job of opening opportunities to people
    without regard to race or gender? No. Why? One reason is, there is
    order, security, and support. Could the military have done its mission
    if they had the same health care system the rest of the American people
    have and half the people in the service could lose their health care on
    a given day by some accident or because a wife or a husband or a child
    turned out to have an illness that wasn't covered in the fine print of
    some policy? You know it couldn't have happened. We owe the rest of the
    American people that security in the face of the changing times in which
    we live.
        Let me say, people say to me, oh, you can't slow the growth of
    health care costs. I say to them, look at California. I want to thank
    your insurance commissioner for the work he's done with my wife's Health
    Care Task Force to develop a health care system. You look at the
    California experience. Look at what happened to the health care costs of
    the people who had the benefit of being in the California public
    employee system, when the people who were providing it knew that the
    State was broke and didn't have a lot of money and when there were
    enough people there that they had bargaining power to get high-quality
    health care at an affordable price. What happened? The inflation rate
    and the premiums was less than one-third the national inflation rate in
    health care.
        And let me say some other things about this health care system,
    because there's been a lot of misinformation put out there. I see all
    these children here. One of the things that is killing this health care
    system of ours is that so many people have no coverage, that when they
    get health care, it's when they're real sick, and it's real expensive,
    and they show up at the emergency room. Under this plan, for the first
    time in history, there will be a comprehensive package of benefits which
    will guarantee preventive and primary health care services to pregnant
    mothers, to little children, to women who need mammograms, to men who
    need cholesterol tests. Those are the things that will lower the cost of
    health care and strengthen the fabric of our economy.
        Look at the burden that California alone pays because of the
    uninsured cost of caring for AIDS patients. Look at that. Under this
    system, when everybody gets covered and all people are in big pools so
    that one high-risk patient's cost is spread across a lot of folks, we
    will have coverage in the regular system and you will not

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    have particular States going broke because they have disproportionate
    burdens of immigrants, of AIDS patients, or anything else. This is
    another important feature of this.
        But finally, let me say two other things. Under this system the
    American people will have more choice than most Americans do now. If you
    have a health care plan that's better than the one we're writing into
    law, your company can keep giving it to you, and the cost of it won't go
    up as rapidly. But there's a limit for the first time to what can be
    taken away. If you don't have one, you will get one. And you'll have
    more choices today. Only one in three workers in a plant with a health
    insurance plan has any choice in the way they get their health care.
    Every American worker will be guaranteed at least three different
    options in the health care plan. And that's a plus for America, to give
    the consumers of this country more choices.
        And finally, I want to say a special word of thanks to the thousands
    of Americans from all across this country who helped us to put this plan
    together and especially to the literally hundreds and hundreds of
    doctors and nurses and others who told us their stories, so that we
    found, unbelievably, we had doctors who were miserable, nurses who were
    unhappy, and the people who lost their insurance in the 11th hour when
    they didn't know what was going to hit them. So for the first time in
    the history, we are going to have a health care plan that has
    significant input on the front end from the people who provide the
    health care because they know, the ones who've been involved in this
    process, that we cannot go on.
        And finally, let me just make this point: At some point in life when
    you have a problem, whatever it is, you have to ask yourself a pretty
    simple question, because every change involves taking a chance, you have
    to ask yourself which is greater: the cost of change or the cost of
    staying the same? It is clear that the greater cost is to keep on doing
    what we're doing and letting America go bankrupt and breaking the hearts
    of millions of American families.
        And so I say to you, we've got a lot of work to do to turn the
    California economy around. But we've taken important steps that were not
    taken before, and there's more to come. We've got a lot of work to do to
    work through all the complexities of the health care issue. We've got a
    lot of work to do to convince Americans to have the courage and to give
    Americans the security they need to change. But I am telling you, folks,
    if we do what we ought to do, California and this country will walk into
    the 21st century with their heads held high, with the American dream
    still alive for our children, with our diversity a strength, not a
    weakness, in a nation that is still leading the world, if we have the
    courage to change and the will to give our people the security they
    deserve.
        That is what I'm dedicated to. And I thank you for being here today
    to support that. God bless you all. Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 5:04 p.m. at McClellan Air Force Base.