    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [December 6, 1993]
    [Pages 2132-2133]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to Senior Citizens
    December 6, 1993

        Today we will have between 7,000 and 8,000 senior citizens going
    through the White House--just today--seeing and getting the tour and
    everything. So I'm glad you did it, and

    [[Page 2133]]

    Hillary and I just wanted to comment and say hello to you and ask you
    just to take a few minutes and visit with us about this year and what
    we're going to be doing next year on the health care issue, because our
    efforts to change the health care system affect senior citizens about as
    much as any group in the country.
        And the most important things that I wanted to emphasize about what
    we're trying to do is first, we don't mess up what's all right now. We
    leave Medicare alone, the way it is, except that we add for senior
    citizens as well as for working people a prescription drug benefit for
    the first time. When I ran for President--and I spent so much time in
    the New Hampshire area when I was running and I went to countless little
    meetings like this--the number one thing that people would tell me who
    were on Medicare is that they wanted a prescription drug benefit, that
    it was a terrible burden. So the way that this benefit will work is that
    every year there will be a $250 deductible after which everyone's
    Medicare policy will cover the drugs that they are prescribed plus a
    modest copay, a small one.
        The other thing that this does that I think is so important is to
    provide some options under long-term care. Today, there are a couple of
    problems with long-term care. One is that oftentimes people can't get it
    unless they spend themselves from Medicare down into the Medicaid
    eligibility, and then often the only option they have is a nursing home.
    So, what we want to do is to keep the nursing home option but to add in-
    home care, to add community-based--like boarding home--care to the
    nursing home option. And we will phase that in over a few years as we
    achieve savings from the other changes in the program. But those are the
    things that I think are very, very important to our country.
        The fastest growing group of Americans are people over 80. And we
    know that with proper medication people of all ages actually are more
    likely to stay out of hospitals, more likely to stay healthy, more
    likely to have lower health care costs over the long run. But that's
    especially true of senior citizens. We also know that with the fastest
    growing group of people being over 80, not everybody will be in the same
    condition. And more and more people will want to have the option to stay
    at home or maybe to leave for a few hours a day and be in some sort of
    community-based care system. So, we think it's really important to move
    away from an undue bias on nursing homes to let people have broader
    options. So, that's basically what this health care plan does.
        And we're going to do our best to try to pass it next year and bring
    about some real security for people who are--for younger people who
    don't have Medicare, the most important thing about it is it will give
    them a package of health care benefits that they can never lose. That's
    the biggest problem for people who are insured in the system today: they
    can lose their benefits. And about 100,000 Americans a month lose it
    permanently. A lot of Americans are insured at work, but their children
    aren't insured. There are all these problems, and those will be fixed.
    But for senior citizens, the number one benefit will be the prescription
    drugs and the change in the coverage of long-term care.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:25 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White
    House.