    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [October 2, 1993]
    [Pages 1646-1647]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's Radio Address
    October 2, 1993

        Good morning. This week the good will and hopefulness that
    surrounded the announcement of our health security plan continued to
    grow. A consensus is developing that our central goal, comprehensive
    health benefits for you and your family that can never be taken away, is
    now within reach and must be achieved. For the first time in our
    lifetimes, the question before Congress is no longer whether to provide
    health security but how.
        Something unique is happening here in Washington: A coalition is
    taking shape across political boundaries, a coalition concerned more
    with passing health care than with scoring political points. And when
    the Congress passes health care reform, it won't have a label that says
    Democrat or Republican, it will be delivered to you with a label that
    says made in America.
        This week as Congress began its deliberations, health care reform
    and the American people have had an extraordinary advocate on their
    side, the First Lady. Before, in our history, only Eleanor Roosevelt and
    Rosalynn Carter have testified before Congress. I'm proud of the
    intellect and compassion and the leadership Hillary is bringing to this
    issue and to our country. Her commitment to health care is a human
    issue. She says to find a solution, it must pass the ``mom test,''
    something that she could explain to her mother and her mother would
    support. That certainly has cut through the heart of a very complex
    health care debate.
        During her testimony before the Senate Finance Committee this week,
    something extraordinary happened: Republican Senator James Jeffords of
    Vermont, a leading expert on health care, stepped forward and endorsed
    our plan. I'm sure that after the acrimony of the budget debate, this
    cooperative spirit comes as welcome news to all of you as it does to me.
    Solving health care must remain above politics. Indeed, I hope every one
    of our legislative efforts in the months ahead is done in the same
    bipartisan spirit.

    [[Page 1647]]

        I've said since the beginning of this debate, I welcome--I need--
    good ideas and options from everyone. No party, no person, no segment of
    the health care community owns all the good ideas. After all, it was a
    Republican President, Richard Nixon, who first recommended over 20 years
    ago extending health coverage by asking every employer to take
    responsibility for paying some of his employees' health care costs. A
    current Republican Senator, Bob Packwood of Oregon, sponsored that bill
    20 years ago.
        Already the fruits of bipartisan cooperation are visible. In just a
    few months, we've moved from deep alarm over health care to designing a
    proposal, to crafting a solution. As I said, we don't have all the
    answers, and we know that. But we have to find them, and we do have a
    plan.
        I believe this plan will work. It will guarantee comprehensive
    health benefits to every one of you. It's based on the notion of
    preserving and protecting what is best about American health care and
    fixing what has gone wrong.
        My goal is to make the world's finest private health care system
    work better and work for everyone. We've rejected a big Government
    solution. We've rejected broad-based taxes. We've insisted that small
    business be protected. And I embrace the compassionate American view
    that no one should go without health care.
        This plan will drastically cut the paperwork that now clogs the
    American health care system. It will maintain the highest quality health
    care, and it will retain your right to choose your doctors. In fact, for
    most of you, your choices in health care will increase, not decrease, if
    this plan passes.
        The plan will keep health care costs down by controlling spending,
    by providing free preventive care that keeps us healthy and saves money
    in the long run. It also asks all of us to take more responsibility for
    paying for a health care system that all of us use but only some of us
    pay for.
        We also ask everyone, every American, to take more responsibility
    for personal behavior. Just as insurance companies and doctors and
    lawyers and the Government must take more responsibility upon themselves
    to make the system work better, so must each individual. It is the
    common sense and shared values of our health security plan that are
    bringing people of all political persuasions to the cause.
        I watched some of Hillary's testimony. I wish I could have seen
    more. We spent a lot of time talking together about what she learned
    from the Congress and how we can make health care a reality for each of
    you. I think we've done the responsible thing by accepting this
    challenge, a challenge too long delayed, and by beginning a truly
    constructive bipartisan debate on what many have characterized as the
    most important piece of domestic legislation in a generation.
        And I believe that once we succeed in providing health security to
    each of you, every family will have a chance to prosper and dream again,
    freed from today's fears: freed from the fear that if you lose your job,
    you'll lose your health care; if your business goes down, you'll never
    have health care coverage; if you get sick and you really need it, you
    won't have health care. Those fears have to be done away with.
        As we move forward we'll continue to carry with us the indelible
    memory of the thousands of people we've talked to who have tangled with
    the health care system and lost, of the thousands who live in fear of
    losing their health care, and to the plight of so many of you who have
    played by the rules and lost to a system that often doesn't follow them.
    Once heard, no one forgets those voices.
        Thank you for making this a great beginning, and thanks for
    listening.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:06 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White
    House.