[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[March 20, 1994]
[Pages 503-505]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Exchange With Reporters in Miami, Florida
March 20, 1994

North Korea

    Q. Anything new on North Korea, Mr. President?
    The President. As you know, the Board of Governors of the IAEA is 
meeting tomorrow. Our goals remain the same. We haven't changed our 
policy. We did do quite a bit of work yesterday, spent a good deal of 
time discussing this. But I really don't have anything else to say

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at this time. I'm talking to our allies. And we're working through this 
and what our options are.
    Q. Is there any possibility that sanctions can be avoided at this 
point?
    The President. Is there what?
    Q. Do you have any reason to believe that sanctions can be avoided 
at this point?
    The President. Well, of course, they can. They can--that really is a 
decision that's up to the North Koreans as much as anything else. But 
there are--we also have some hope that they will go forward. They did 
let the inspectors in; then they didn't; they did. There seems to be a 
difference of opinion within their country about how to proceed. So to 
some extent the ball is still clearly in their court. But we are 
proceeding to consider all of our options and to talk with our allies 
about it.
    Q. What is your hope based on, that they might allow full 
inspections, sir?
    The President. I didn't say I hope. He didn't ask me if I hoped they 
would.
    Q. You said that there's still a hope, you said?
    The President. Well, of course, there is. There appear to be people 
within North Korea that want to proceed to normalize the relations of 
their country with the international community and people who don't. And 
we'll just have to see what they do now, where we go from here. But our 
objectives remain what they have always been. We have been entirely 
reasonable and forthcoming. And we have also worked very closely with 
not only our strong allies in South Korea but with the Japanese, the 
Chinese, and others who share many or if not all of our objectives. So 
we're going to keep going forward, see what happens in the next few 
days. But the next step is to see what happens at the Board of Governors 
meeting.
    Q. Are tensions ratcheting up so high--there appears to be some 
concern that this may evolve into some kind of armed conflict, given the 
height of the rhetoric?
    The President. Well, I have done everything I could to avoid 
ratcheting up the tensions while being firm in the objectives of our 
policy and what I think are in the interests of not just the United 
States but the people of that part of the world and Asia. So we're just 
working ahead.
    I'm not trying to ratchet up the tensions, I'm just trying to work 
through this in a very deliberate but very firm and disciplined way, and 
that's what we'll continue to do.
    Thank you.

[At this point, the President moved from White House reporters to a 
group of Miami reporters and continued answering questions. His remarks 
are joined in progress.]

Health Care Reform

    The President. ----have a system of comprehensive benefits, leave 
Medicare alone--it works--but add prescription drugs, and phase in over 
time options other than nursing homes for long-term care, and cover 
people who work through the workplace. Nine out of ten people who have 
private insurance are already covered through the workplace. This is a 
very, very big deal. And it is imperative if we're ever going to do what 
we ought to do to give security to the American people.
    We've got to reform the insurance system. You can't have in any 
given time 39 million people without health insurance. You can't have 
113 million--30 million Americans with lifetime limits on their 
policies. You can't have 81 million Americans with preexisting 
conditions so that they can't change jobs or they're paying insurance 
premiums that are too high. You can't have rates that discriminate 
against older Americans when older Americans are the fastest growing 
group of our population and more and more of them want to work. So these 
are all things that have to be dealt with. And I think that the Congress 
is going to face up to their responsibilities this year. We've got the 
economy turned around. We're going in the right direction with the 
economy. We're going to have welfare reform, got some very important 
school reforms going. But we have to face the obligation to deal with 
health care reform.

Cuba and Crime Legislation

    Q. [Inaudible]--rule out the possibility to talk with Fidel Castro 
in the near future?
    The President. Yes, I have no plans to do that.
    The other thing I want to emphasize to you, that before we get to 
health care--this is a very important issue here in Florida, and I 
talked with the Attorney General about it in some length just 
yesterday--that Congress must move quickly to pass the crime bill. In 
addition to all the interest groups trying to kill health care reform, 
delay on the crime bill could cause us significant problems. So that's 
the other big objective. Next week when Congress meets, or

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this week now, we've got to go ahead and pass that crime bill. I feel 
very good about where we are on that.
    Q. [Inaudible]--any change in the current policy?
    The President. My policy is clear, and I have no plans to change it.

Immigration

    Q. Mr. President, on immigration, the State of Florida is talking 
about a lawsuit against the Federal Government to recoup the monies that 
this State pays on incoming refugees. Should the Federal Government help 
pay for that?
    The President. We should pay more. And under my administration we 
are paying more than ever before. This situation had been allowed to 
develop, in my judgment, to a very severe degree when I became President 
only a little over a year ago. Since that time, we have moved 
aggressively to try to alleviate the health, the education, and the 
welfare costs that States bear because of immigration. The States that 
have the biggest burdens, California, Florida, and Texas, to some extent 
New York, have not been fully reimbursed. But I'm moving ahead to try to 
alleviate this burden. It isn't fair. National policies, or lack of 
policies, and the inability of our country to control our borders in the 
face of illegal immigration, are not the fault of any particular State. 
And it is a national responsibility. But we are moving in the Congress 
to try to alleviate these burdens. I worked hard--we made some real 
progress last year. We're going to make some more this year. And I think 
Florida should do what they can to keep the pressure on us. But they 
need to know that I'm on the side of the Florida officials on this one. 
It's just going to take some time to work ourselves out of a very big 
hole that I found when I came here.
    Thank you all.
    Q. Welcome to Florida, Mr. President.
    The President. Glad to be back.

Note: The exchange began at approximately 3:30 p.m. at Miami 
International Airport. A tape was not available for verification of the 
content of this exchange.