[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
[September 25, 1993]
[Pages 1596-1598]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



The President's Radio Address
September 25, 1993

    Good morning. Last Wednesday evening, I asked Congress to take up 
the challenge of providing health security to every American, to help 
write the next great chapter in our Nation's history. Already your 
response has been positive and dramatic, creating what I believe will be 
an irresistible momentum for reform, while insisting that we be careful 
to do it right. And I am increasingly confident that before it adjourns 
next year, Congress will pass and I will sign a bill that guarantees 
each American comprehensive health benefits that can never ever be taken 
away.
    In the debate between now and that day, a debate I welcome, our most 
urgent priority must be to ensure that we preserve what is right with 
American health care and fix what is wrong. So today I want to take a 
few minutes to talk with you about the plan that I am suggesting and how 
it will work for you, what will stay the same and what will change.
    First, I want you to know that after considering all the options and 
looking at the systems in place in other countries in the world, I 
decided that our Nation does not need a Government-run health care 
system. So our plan builds upon the private system, which provides 
health care to the vast majority of you today. Nine of 10 of you who 
have private health care coverage now, get it through the place you 
work. In the future, you will do it just like you do now. Because that's 
what works now, I think it should work for everyone.
    Second, under our health care plan, 63 percent, more than 6 in 10 
Americans who have health insurance today, will pay the same or less 
than you do today for benefits that are the same or greater, including 
the right to choose your doctor. If you get good health care, if you 
like your benefits, if your employer pays 100 percent of your health 
care costs, nothing will change.
    Let's say you work for Super Software, a small computer company that 
employs about 150 people, and that today your company provides you 
excellent health benefits, your choice of doctors, and picks up the 
whole tab. That won't change. You will still sign up for a health plan 
at work, see the doctors you want, and get the same benefits.
    Now, suppose you work for a giant auto company and your union has 
fought hard for your benefits; you've even had to give up a wage 
increase or two to get them. Well, under this

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new plan, you will keep those benefits.
    What do you get out of this plan? You get security. You get the 
knowledge that you'll never lose health coverage even if you lose or 
change your job or you get very, very sick. You also know that no matter 
what happens, there's a limit to what your employer can do to reduce the 
benefits or your choice of plans.
    I know that many people also want to know whether you'll still be 
able to choose your doctor. Again, I say the answer is yes. And no 
matter what kind of plan you're in today, you will all benefit because 
under this new system, the cost of health care will go up much more 
slowly than they've been going up for the last 10 or 12 years. And 
you'll be able to choose from at least three plans providing 
comprehensive coverage. You'll also be able to choose your doctor no 
matter what plan you decide to join because you can follow your doctor 
into whatever plan he or she joins.
    Now, a lot of families have more than one doctor. Say you're a 
working mother who values your obstetrician, and you trust your 
children's pediatrician. You want to know if you can see them both. 
There's still no need to worry, because doctors will be able to join 
more than one plan and keep treating the same patients they see today.
    Finally, we're going to maintain the quality of American health 
care. We can do that by making sure that there are quality standards met 
by all the health care plans, by spending our money smarter, less on 
paperwork and unnecessary costs and more on medical research, health 
care centers, and preventive care; by freeing your doctors and nurses 
from the paperwork they've got to wade through everyday; and by giving 
you information, valuable information, on variations in costs and 
outcomes in medical procedures in your area. These are the things that 
are right, that make sense, that will keep the quality that we've got 
today.
    Now, let's talk about what needs to be changed in this huge health 
care system of ours. We begin with the need for security. No American 
can be absolutely guaranteed today that he or she will never lose health 
care. But we begin by making that guarantee, a comprehensive package of 
health care benefits, the kinds of benefits that only people with the 
best plans and the best companies get today, that never can be taken 
away, even if you lose your job or move to another town or State or 
someone in your family gets very sick.
    Then we're going to do something, frankly, that we should have done 
a long time ago. We're going to provide every American, no matter what 
kind of plan you sign up for, with free preventive care. Things like 
immunizations for children, prenatal care for pregnant women, 
mammograms, cholesterol screenings, things that will keep us healthy and 
save us all a lot of money over the long run.
    Many Americans will actually have more choices in the kinds of 
health care they get because everyone will have a choice of at least 
three health care plans in connection with their job. Today, only about 
a third of Americans have a choice of more than one plan when they're 
insured at work. That's a lot more than most Americans have.
    We're also going to clear out the paper and the fine print. No more 
fighting with some insurance bureaucrat hundreds of miles away in order 
to get what your policy owes you anyway. And no more doctors telling 
stories of the hundreds of patients they could have served every year if 
only they weren't swamped in redtape.
    This will simplify our system and literally save tens of billions of 
dollars a year. Don't take my word for it, ask any doctor or nurse or 
hospital administrator about the growth of unnecessary paperwork in the 
last decade, mandated by both Government and insurance companies. It 
adds about a dime to every single dollar we spend in health care. And it 
has resulted in hospitals hiring 4 times as many clerical workers as 
doctors being added to their staffs.
    Something else is going to be different, too. We're going to ask 
each of you to take more responsibility. Six of every 10 of you will pay 
the same or less than you do now for the same or better benefits. But 
some people will pay more: people who are getting a free ride today, 
businesses that contribute nothing to cover their employees, and others 
who offer bare bones coverage with huge deductibles and copayments, and 
those employees will have to pay something for their health care. Young, 
single adults will pay more, too, especially those who are in the best 
of health and don't see any reason to buy health insurance, the ones 
who, when they end up in the emergency room without insurance, pass 
those costs on to the rest of us.
    For small businesses and people on very low wages, there will be 
discounts to make sure we

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don't cost jobs or hurt people, but everybody should take some 
responsibility for their own health care. It's not fair to the rest of 
Americans when you don't. There will also be more responsibility on 
those in the systems, less for insurance regulation and overhead, a 
crackdown on fraud and abuse, fewer frivolous malpractice lawsuits, 
fewer unnecessary procedures done just to get the money and more 
responsibility for individuals for their own health, strong efforts and 
incentives to reduce teen pregnancy and low birthweight babies, to 
reduce the rate of AIDS. These are the kinds of things we have got to 
do.
    But in the end, the most important thing that will change is this: 
Every American will get something that today no amount of money can buy, 
the security of health care that can never be taken away no matter what. 
No matter how good your coverage is today, you can lose it. You can lose 
it all at once, or it can be gradually taken away year after year.
    Our goal then is health care security for all Americans. The only 
way to get there is to keep what's right with our system, the best 
medical care in the world, the best medical technology, the best medical 
professionals, and fix what's wrong.
    We're going to protect quality and choice, but we're going to make 
some changes. We're going to simplify this system. We're going to get 
billions of dollars of savings. We're going to ask people who don't pay 
anything now to assume more responsibility for their own health care. 
That way we can give you health care security without a big tax 
increase.
    In the weeks ahead, we'll be describing in greater details what 
needs to be done. But the most important thing is health security. We 
can do it.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 5:21 p.m. on September 24 in the 
Roosevelt Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on 
September 25.