[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[March 21, 1994]
[Pages 506-513]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 506]]


Remarks in a Health Care Forum in Deerfield Beach
March 21, 1994

    The President. Thank you very much. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. 
Thank you for that sign back there. Can you hear me in the back? Good. 
Everybody sit down and relax now.
    Hillary and I are delighted to be back here at Century Village. We 
liked it the first time; we like it better this time.
    I want to thank Larry Smedley for that introduction; Joanne Pepper 
for her support of health care; your fine, fine Congressman, Harry 
Johnston, for his leadership and support of our efforts in Congress; and 
my good friend Governor Lawton Chiles for his kind remarks and his 
strong leadership. I also want to note the presence here in the audience 
today of Congressman Peter Deutsch and Congressman Alcee Hastings; a 
host of State officials including your Lieutenant Governor, Buddy 
MacKay, Attorney General Bob Butterworth, and many others, legislators 
and other State officials. I want to thank the mayor, Mayor Albert 
Capellini, for giving me a cap. If I put it on in a few minutes, I'll be 
just like most of you, protecting myself from the sun. I want to thank 
Mr. and Mrs. Levy for having us here at Century Village and recognize my 
good friends Michael and Kitty Dukakis who are here with us today. Thank 
you for being here.
    Ladies and gentlemen, 2 years ago Hillary and I came here when I was 
running for President. We sought the support of the people of Broward 
County and south Florida and all of this State. We did extremely well 
here on Super Tuesday, much better than anyone predicted that we would. 
And we nearly carried this heavily Republican State in November, and I 
haven't given up on it for next time.
    I believe it happened because Americans were sick and tired of their 
politics and their headlines being dominated every day by distraction, 
by division, by destruction. I said that I wanted to get away from 
distraction and focus the American people on the real problems that we 
face and our real opportunities, that I wanted to go beyond division to 
bring our people back together again across the lines of race and age 
and region and income and party, and that I was tired of destruction. I 
thought it was time we started building again. Americans are real good 
when we work on building things and getting together and moving forward; 
we're absolutely unstoppable.
    Even though I'm kind of a mediocre golfer and not a very good 
baseball player at all, I'm glad I'm here in Florida for spring training 
because while the baseball players are working on their swings, I came 
to tell you that I'm still in Washington going to bat for you, and I 
will every day I am the President of the United States.
    You heard the Congressman mention a little of this, but I want to 
take just a minute to give you a progress report. When I took office, we 
had seen the 4 slowest years of economic growth since the Great 
Depression, almost no job growth. People said our deficit was going to 
be over $300 billion a year. It is now commonly agreed that the first 
year of this administration was the most productive in a generation: 2.1 
million new jobs in 13 months; the highest growth rate in 10 years in 
the fourth quarter of last year; dramatic increases in sales of cars and 
homes; an economic program that led to lower interest rates and higher 
investments and more jobs and opportunity.
    We have done something for your grandchildren and your children. 
We've reformed the college loan program to lower the interest rates and 
make the repayment terms better. We passed the national service program 
that this year will provide 20,000 young Americans and 2 years from now 
100,000 young Americans a chance to earn their way through college by 
serving their communities at the grassroots level to make our streets 
safer, our people healthier, our people smarter and stronger. We finally 
passed the family leave bill, after 7 years of trying, to make sure that 
people don't lose their jobs if they have to take time off from work 
when a baby's born or a parent is sick and needs the help of a child. 
And after 7 years we passed the Brady bill, to begin the work of making 
our streets safer.
    This year the Congress is up there right now working on a 
comprehensive crime bill to put another 100,000 police officers on the 
street, to take automatic weapons and semiautomatic weapons off the 
street, to provide alternative

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punishment to young people and drug treatment for people who need it, 
and a ``three strikes and you're out'' law so we don't parole people who 
are serious dangers to society.
    They're working on a welfare reform law to make welfare a second 
chance, not a way of life. They're working on a campaign finance reform 
law that Governor Chiles worked his heart out on as a Senator. We're 
finally going to get it this year. And most important, we are working on 
doing something that started 60 years ago, finally, finally providing 
health care security for all Americans that can never be taken away.
    Many of you in this audience remember when Franklin Roosevelt led 
the struggle to create Social Security. You were there when John Kennedy 
and Lyndon Johnson fought to create Medicare, a solemn pact with our 
senior citizens. Many of you also remember, I hope, that Franklin 
Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter and, yes, 
even President Nixon all tried and failed in the face of special 
interest opposition to guarantee health security for all Americans. But 
we can do it this year, and we must.
    There are those who say there is no health care crisis. Well, as 
always happens when we get up to the brink on health reform, inflation 
has dropped a little in the cost of health care. That's one thing our 
health care reform has already done, brought the rising cost of health 
care in to the point where it's rising more slowly. But you let them 
kill it this time, and it'll go right back to the way it was for the 
last 12 years, going up at 2 and 3 times the rate of inflation.
    Even now, 2 million Americans lose their health insurance every 
month, 100,000 of them for good, forever. Fifty-eight million Americans 
are without health insurance at some time during every year in a country 
of 255 million. Eighty-one million Americans have a preexisting 
condition in their family so that they can never change the job they 
have because they couldn't get new insurance, or they have to pay higher 
rates for the insurance they have, or they can't get insurance at all. 
And 133 million Americans, a majority of us, have lifetime limits on our 
health coverage so that when we need it the most, we can run out of 
health insurance.
    Now, I believe that qualifies as a crisis. I also know that 
everybody in this country who is still working for a living, who does 
not work for the Federal Government or a very big and completely secure 
corporation, can lose their health insurance even if they've got it. I 
also know that because of the cost of health care going up at 2 and 3 
times the rate of the inflation, there are other plans in the Congress 
that seek to cut Medicare or cut Medicaid increases without doing one 
thing to try to help our senior citizens and without proposing a 
comprehensive plan that guarantees you that Medicare services will not 
be cut. I am here to tell you that we're not going to mess up what's 
right about American health care. Medicare works. Our doctors, our 
nurses, our hospitals, our medical research works, and we're going to 
keep them intact and improve our support for them. That's what we ought 
to do.
    My fellow Americans, if we want everybody in this country to have 
health care, we've only got three choices: We can guarantee coverage 
through the workplace through private insurance; we can pass a tax and 
cover everyone; or we can decide what a lot of the special interest 
groups and the Congress, people in the Congress hope we'll decide, which 
is, one more time, we just can't figure out how to do it.
    Every other advanced country with which we are competing for the 
future has figured out how to give all their people health care 
security. We have not been able to figure out how to do it. You know 
why? It's because the people who are making a killing on the financing 
of the system don't want us to figure it out. I say, give it to the 
people.
    I want to tell you what I think we should do: We ought to have 
guaranteed private insurance; we ought to keep the choice of doctors and 
health care plans in the hands of consumers, people who are actually 
having to deal with the care, not their employers or the insurance 
companies; we ought to outlaw insurance abuses like charging older 
people more than younger people for their insurance or eliminating 
people with preexisting conditions; we ought to guarantee those health 
benefits at work; and we ought to protect Medicare and improve it.
    First, I believe that guaranteed health coverage is important 
because if you don't do it, you're never going to bring costs under 
control, and all the rest of us will be suffering from medical inflation 
from now until Kingdom come. And a lot of you are going to deal with the 
fact that your children and grandchildren are facing bankruptcy because 
they don't have the kind of security you have under Medicare.

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    I also believe the benefits package has to be a good one. If it 
doesn't include primary and preventive care, you will have children who 
are sicker than they ought to be; you'll have women who ought to have 
access to mammographies and men who ought to have cholesterol tests and 
things of that kind that you won't have. This is very important. And 
people have got to know that this is going to be there and can never be 
taken away.
    The second thing--I want to be very clear on this--the second thing 
that our plan does is to preserve, indeed, to expand the right of the 
American people to choose their doctor or their health care plan. Now, 
if you're on Medicare, you can choose your doctor. But slightly more 
than half the people in the country who are insured at work already 
today have lost their right to choose their health care plan and their 
doctor. They don't have it today. And if we don't do anything, the 
rising cost of medical care will force more and more and more employers 
to take from their employees the right to choose their doctor or their 
health care plan.
    Under our system, every American in the work force will get three 
choices: They can choose their doctor individually; they can choose a 
given health care plan; or they can choose another plan. They'll have at 
least three choices. And if they don't like the choice they made, every 
year they get to make another one. That's the way we ought to do it. 
That will guarantee the highest quality. It will protect the interest of 
our doctors and nurses. It will be the right thing to do.
    The third thing we've got to do is stop some of these insurance 
company abuses. We have got to stop people from dropping their insured 
people. We've got to stop people from cutting benefits to the bone. We 
can't have people with their rates going up just because they get sick. 
After all, you have insurance because you might get sick. So when you 
get sick, which is the reason you bought the insurance in the first 
place, should you have to have higher rates? Of course not. We shouldn't 
have lifetime limits. Insurance ought to mean what it used to mean back 
when it was started by Blue Cross during the Depression: Pay a fair 
price for security, and when you're sick, your health care benefits are 
there for you. That's what insurance used to mean, and it can mean that 
again.
    Now, I think the easiest way to do this is just to expand coverage 
at the workplace. Why? Because 8 out of 10 Americans who have no 
insurance are working or are in working families. And 9 out of 10 
Americans who have private insurance get it at the workplace. So the 
simplest way is to say that employers and employees who aren't covered 
should purchase insurance and to provide discounts for small businesses 
who can't afford it otherwise. That is the simplest way to do it.
    The Government should provide the discounts for the small business 
and cover the unemployed. This approach builds on what works. It's easy, 
it's simple, it will make sure that everyone is covered.
    Why are some people fighting it? They say it's bad for small 
business. Let me tell you something, folks, 70 percent of the small 
business people in this country cover their employees. What about them? 
They're at an unfair competitive disadvantage to those people in the 
same business they're in who don't cover their employees. And I'll tell 
you something else, I meet small business person after small business 
person who says, ``I'm embarrassed that every year I have to raise the 
copay and the deductible because my rates are 35 or 40 percent more 
expensive than the people in the Government are paying or the people 
from big business are paying.'' We are going to change that. That's what 
Governor Chiles has tried to do here in Florida; that's what we're going 
to do for America.
    And let me say finally that no health care reform can pass any true 
test unless it is good for older Americans. Dr. Arthur Flemming, a 
former U.S. Commissioner of Aging and a fighter for older Americans in 
the tradition of Claude Pepper, has called my proposal, and I quote, 
``the best thing for older Americans since Medicare.'' That's why so 
many senior groups have said that our approach is the best option for 
senior citizens and why I was so proud that Larry Smedley of the 
National Council of Senior Citizens would come here today to endorse our 
efforts and give you all those caps to keep you from expiring in this 
heat.
    Under our approach, if you get Medicare, you keep it. Your choice of 
doctor is protected. I know that's important, because every older 
American deserves the security of quality health care. But under our 
approach you get more. I want to expand benefits.
    We want to have coverage for prescription drugs, which costs older 
Americans more than

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anything today. Since I started running for President, the number one 
complaint I have heard from people who are on Medicare is that they are 
not poor enough to be on Medicaid, they don't want to be that poor, but 
they are not rich enough to pay their outrageous drug bills. We want to 
do something about it, and that's why our plan covers prescription 
medicine for senior citizens.
    We also begin to provide coverage for long-term care where you want 
it, at home or in your community. I want to thank the wonderful ``We 
Care'' volunteers for greeting us today and for walking Hillary and me 
in here. I understand they help many of you get medicine or get a little 
bit of help to stay at home. But not everybody is lucky enough to have a 
``We Care.'' Believe me, I know. I meet people who don't every week. 
That's why we need to make a start in helping people to afford care 
where they prefer it, in their homes or in communities like this one. 
It's not right to force people into nursing homes when they could do 
just fine at home if they had a little help from their friends.
    Let me also say that I know we can strengthen Medicare and make some 
savings in the Medicare program, but only--listen to me--only if we 
cover everybody and if everyone has medical inflation go down. Under our 
plan we still expect Medicare spending to go up at twice the rate of 
inflation, not 3 times the rate of inflation which is what's going to 
happen if we don't do something to change. Medicare goes up at 3 times 
the rate of inflation, your premiums under Medicare go up more for the 
same health care. Under our plan, less inflation, and we use the savings 
for prescription drugs and for health care at home or in the community. 
It is a good deal for the senior citizens of America.
    Let me make one other point. We must also invest more and more, not 
less and less, in medical research into all kinds of problems but 
especially one which I know concerns many of you in this audience today 
and that's Alzheimer's disease and the new drug therapies to treat 
Alzheimer's, into things which cause cancer, into the causes of 
osteoporosis, into what we can do to prevent heart disease. America 
leads the world in cutting-edge research, and under our plan we actually 
increase the funds going to medical research.
    The opponents of our plan have tried to confuse the issue by making 
it seem complicated. They ignore the fact that the system we have today 
is the most complicated on the face of the Earth. The principles of our 
plan are simple: Guarantee private insurance to every American; let you 
choose your doctor and your health plan; outlaw insurance company 
abuses; guarantee health benefits at work for everyone who works; 
preserve and strengthen Medicare for older Americans by adding the 
prescription drug and long-term care benefits. That's our approach, and 
that's our opportunities.
    But let me say this, there are a lot of people who are making money 
out of this system today who don't want it to change, even though we can 
change it and improve, not weaken, health care. One group of health 
insurers has already spent $14 million on health care ads to scare you 
about the cause of health care reform.
    And what are the special interests saying? Led by the extreme right 
of the Republican Party, they are warning of a grim future. I say that 
because we do have some good Republicans who want health care reform, 
and we hope they'll be at least free to vote with us in the Congress as 
we work toward it. That's a message to their leaders, these guys that--
no kidding, they're up there saying all over again, they say, ``This is 
socialized medicine; this is rationing.'' This is private health 
insurance. This is what every other economy with an advanced standard of 
living in the world has done but the United States; that's what it is.
    It's the same old thing they said when Roosevelt tried to do health 
care reform, when Kennedy fought for Medicare. Listen to this, when 
Kennedy fought for Medicare back in 1962, a movie actor in California 
who later became the Governor of his State and the leader of our 
country--listen to this--urged listeners to oppose Medicare. He said, 
``If you don't do this, one of these days you and I are going to spend 
our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what 
it was once like in America when men were free.''
    Now, to his credit, by the time he became President, Mr. Reagan 
didn't try to totally dismantle the Medicare system. But they're using 
the same rhetoric today. Once we've put it in, they won't try to take it 
out. They'll try to take credit for it just like they do with Social 
Security and everything else.

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    Make no mistake about it, the guardians of gridlock, the people who 
liked our national politics when it was about distraction, division, and 
destruction, are doing everything they can to stop health care reform. 
If you will help me, it will be good for your health because we won't 
let them, if we stay together.
    My fellow Americans, I cannot outspend the opponents of health care 
reform. They have more money than I can possibly raise, especially if 
I'm working for you every day. But I can fight, and you can fight with 
me. And we can keep working, and we can support Congressmen like your 
Congressman who believe that the time has long since passed when America 
should be able to continue making excuses for no prescription drugs, no 
long-term care in the home or in the community, and not even providing 
decent basic coverage to the working families of this country. We can do 
better, and with your help, we will.
    Thank you very much, and God bless you all.

[At this point, Hillary Clinton spoke about the personal dimensions of 
the health care reform battle and then invited questions.]

    Q. [Inaudible]--about the 28 million veterans in this--what about--
can you hear me?
    Hillary Clinton. Let me repeat this gentleman's question. His 
question is, what about the 28 million veterans?
    Well, the President's still visiting. Let me say that the 
President's health care reform has been endorsed by all of the major 
veterans service organizations because it is the only one that tries to 
preserve and strengthen the veterans health system. And there's a very 
specific way we offer to do that. Those of you who are veterans, and I 
imagine there are many of you in this crowd--if you are like my father 
was, that was one of the most important parts of your life. And he never 
could understand as he got older why he could not take his Medicare and 
go to a VA hospital, as he chose to do so. And we've heard that from 
many veterans.
    Under the President's health care reform plan, if you're a veteran 
with Medicare or Medigap or other insurance, you can use the VA system. 
You will no longer be locked out of the system that is there for 
veterans.
    Now, veterans with service-connected disabilities and low-income 
veterans will always retain their preference, because we have to take 
care of them first. But there are many facilities around our country 
that can accommodate millions of our veterans who can bring their 
Medicare and insurance dollars. So we are going to take care of our 
veterans.
    Thank you.
    Q. Mrs. Clinton, if this program is put into effect, this reformed 
health plan, will the Congressmen and Senators assume the same payments 
as we do?
    Mrs. Clinton. Yes, and the President, too. We are going to have one 
health care system for everybody, including Congress and the President.
    Q. I'm president of the Florida Nurses Association. And you have 
made it clear that you will veto any health care reform bill that does 
not guarantee coverage for all Americans. Will you make a commitment to 
veto any bill that doesn't also include tough and effective cost 
controls? And could you comment on the role of advanced-practice nurses 
in the health care reform?
    The President. She said that--this lady is from the nurses 
association here in Florida. Give her a hand. [Applause] And the 
American Nurses Association have been among the strongest supporters of 
our plan. I appreciate that. She said I said that I would veto any bill 
that didn't provide universal coverage; would I also veto a bill that 
didn't have cost controls? And would I comment on the role of advanced-
practice nursing?
    Let me answer the second question first. We have achieved so much 
support among nurses in part because our plan permits the widest 
possible use of nurses to do things that they are properly trained to do 
anywhere in the country.
    And secondly, it's not as easy to say yes or no on that. I think 
there have to be cost controls in the plan. If there aren't some 
guarantees of controlling costs, we won't be able to prove to the 
Congressional Budget Office how much the plan costs, and we won't be 
able to pass it. So as a practical matter, no plan will pass and come to 
my desk unless there are clear, disciplined measures to make sure that 
costs are held down. It can't happen. But I don't want to get into a 
fight about what kinds of measures we'll accept or not accept.
    Q. I want you to know that we love you. And the reason we love you 
is because you've

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shown by words and, more important, by deeds that you love us, too.
    The President. Thank you.
    Q. I have two questions. Why do we need those parasites known as the 
insurance business? And I have one more question, and the other question 
is, can we end up with 50 alliances instead of say, 5,000? If you want 
real competition, why not one alliance or two for the more populous 
States? That should be the real competition, because we'll show the 
industry where we come from.
    The President. Let me answer the insurance question, and I'll let 
Hillary answer the alliance question, okay? We'll split it up. Because a 
lot of you have single-payer signs up, and I want to talk abut that.
    There are basically, obviously, two ways to get universal coverage. 
You can do it through a single-payer system, or you can do it through an 
employer-employee shared cost system for private insurance. Here is why 
I think our plan is better and why I wouldn't eliminate all the 
insurance companies. First of all, I feel compelled to tell you, sir, 
that there are some insurance companies, believe it or not, who have not 
contributed to that television ad campaign against our plan, because 
they do favor universal control--I mean, universal coverage for all 
Americans.
    Now, here's why I think it's--our plan is better. First of all, I 
think that it's clear that some of the insurance companies, particularly 
bigger ones, do a good job of trying to manage the health care system 
and manage costs. And if you have enough people in a big insurance pool, 
they can get their administrative costs down almost as low as you have 
in the Medicare program, if the pools are big enough. That's the second 
question you asked. And they really have acquired quite a lot of 
expertise.
    Secondly, as a practical matter, there are a lot of awfully good 
people who are working in this industry. And I don't think we should 
throw them all out of work. The problem is that in our system you've got 
1,500 separate companies writing thousands of different policies, so you 
have to hire all these people to figure out who's not covered. If we had 
a rational private insurance system, the insurance companies can make a 
valuable contribution without bankrupting the system.
    I also believe, as a practical matter, based on--we have Members of 
Congress here who may have a different opinion, but my reading of the 
Congress is that we have a better chance to pass guaranteed private 
insurance than the single-payer system, because I think it's simpler, 
easier, and less disruptive. But I also think, on the merits, it's the 
right thing to do.
    Now, let me let Hillary answer the question about the alliances.
    Mrs. Clinton. Well, I think that if you have the States making the 
decisions, some States will only have one; some will only have two; some 
of the larger ones may need more than two. But it's not going to be 
thousands. It will only be probably 100 or 120 at the most, the way we 
look at the population. So I don't think that will be a problem.
    And the other thing about single payer is in the President's plan, 
each State has the right to be a single-payer State if they so choose. 
And so that is something we want local people to make a decision about.
    Q. Hillary and Mr. President, to quote you about ``we'll watch it,'' 
that happened to my wife. She died because a doctor said, ``We'll watch 
it.''
    Now, as a little aside, Mr. President, our honorable Governor will 
concur, we do have the best health care in the world right here in 
Florida. Our number two industry is citrus, oranges and grapefruit. 
That's the best health care for Florida at the moment. Thank you.
    The President. Go ahead.

[A participant asked about health care coverage for mental illness.]

    Mrs. Clinton. I wish that this gentleman had the microphone so you 
could have heard. He made the point that a third of the people who are 
homeless have mental health problems. Many people in our prisons have 
mental health problems. And many Americans have mental health and 
substance abuse problems. We want to begin covering mental health 
problems. And in the benefits package the President has proposed, that 
will begin, because it is not fair to turn our backs on mental illness 
like schizophrenia or clinical depression and not treat it like a 
disease. And in fact, if we began to treat it, it will actually help 
more people and save us all money. And so we're going to start doing 
that and beginning to treat mental health right.
    Q. Mr. President, and to Hillary--Hillary, I know you've been 
pushing the primary physician. And even though I'm on a board with

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a lot of hospitals and doctors, how are we going to get rid of all these 
specialists who charge millions and millions of dollars for--
[inaudible]--MRI's, and scans? We need primary health care. Will you 
push that, please?
    Mrs. Clinton. Yes, we do need more primary health care physicians, 
and we're going to try to create more and also advanced-practice nurses 
and physician assistants because we really need a team of doctors and 
nurses and other health care professionals to work together on primary 
care, so that our specialists then can get the good referrals that they 
need to take care of people.
    The President. Don't let--let me just say this: Don't let anybody 
tell you, scare you into saying that we are for undermining the American 
people having enough specialists. That's a load of hooey. Right now 
we've got enough specialists for 30 years, but we don't have enough 
primary care physicians in most States in the country. So we'll take 
care of the specialists, but we have to have more primary physicians 
first.
    Q. Mr. President, I realize that you're trying to redo the medical 
program. The problem that I'm facing, and I might be the youngest one in 
the crowd, is I have somebody at home who has applied for Medicare 
disability and should be eligible. And what is happening to this person 
is over a year ago or a year and half ago, this person was denied it 
twice. It has gone to Federal court. We have an honorable lawyer, and 
the judges are writing one thing and saying another. And what I'd like 
to do--and I made myself a promise I was going to do this today, I'll be 
glad to pass it on to you--I would like you to look at--may I come 
forward?
    The President. I'll have somebody come get it.
    Q. Well, I could come forward.
    The President. Thank you.
    Q. And I have to say to you, that while you are fixing or redoing a 
new prescription for medicine, I think you need to look at this 
documentation and talk to--I'm very disappointed, but I know Senator 
Graham, who I have been working with on this, has the whole file. And I 
think there are a lot of disabled people, I might be one of them next, 
that need help and need a system that's ethical and moral.
    And I thank you for listening to me, and I wish you good luck 
because we need it.
    The President. Thank you very much.
    Q. Mr. President, I'd like to tell you what happened to my mother. 
She needed a operation and was told to go to a doctor to get this 
operation. The doctor said, ``Yes, you need a gallstone operation, but 
my price is $5,000.'' My father says, ``I can give you my life savings 
of $1,000, but I don't have $5,000.'' He said, ``Mr. Segal, if you don't 
have money to go in a taxi, you ride in a subway.'' And he left.
    The President. I think what you said speaks for itself. And thank 
you for having the courage to tell us. Thank you.
    Q. Mr. President, a lot of people here know me. I've been 
coordinating your health care plan for south Florida since the 
Inauguration. And I just want to comment that it's really a pleasure to 
do so. But I'd like to ask you what's asked of me when I give speeches 
around. They say, ``Mr. Brodin, how does this lower or lessen the 
bureaucracy? If anything, you're going to create another level of 
bureaucracy.'' Could they hear it from your lips--that I prize your 
words greatly--and explain to them, as I have tried, how it will not 
only not multiply it but it will actually significantly lessen it. And 
by the way, it's a pleasure to work with you, too.
    The President. Here's why it will lessen the bureaucracy. Look 
what--what runs the bureaucracy up today? Talk to any doctor or nurse. 
Talk to these nurses here. You have 1,500 separate health insurance 
companies writing thousands and thousands of different policies, each of 
them with different coverages or different copays or different 
deductibles. Once you standardize the benefit package and standardize 
the coverage, then you make it possible for every person to fill out one 
form. The insured person can fill out one form, a simple form. The nurse 
at the hospital or the clinic can fill out one form. You will 
drastically cut the paperwork; the insurance people will be processing 
one form.
    So I want to--the people--you will need fewer jobs in clerical work 
in hospitals, clinics, and insurance companies. You will need more jobs 
in providing home health care, community-based health care, and doing 
other things. But it will be, from a pure paperwork point of view, it 
will be much simpler because of the reform of the insurance packages.
    Now, what that means is the little insurance companies will either 
have to resort to selling supplemental policies or go into cooperative 
arrangements so they can insure people in big

[[Page 513]]

pools and make money the way grocery stores do, a little bit of money on 
a lot of people instead of a lot of money on a few people.
    But that's why it will be much simpler. The central benefit package 
in the common system--and everybody carries a little card around like 
that card up there and just files for the health care.
    Q. Thank you. That's my most frequently asked question----
    Q. [Inaudible]--dedicated State employee. My name is--and I've been 
deprived of all my State benefits for the past 2 years. My dad in 
Cleveland has had to pay for my Blue Cross-Blue Shield for me. And I 
just--[inaudible]--grave injustice. And I'm just asking for help from 
you and also from the Governor, because I've been calling his office for 
the last 2 years to help me, and no one has helped me. And I was a 
devoted State employee and the only girl in my office in Broward County, 
and I don't deserve it--the division of hotels and restaurants.
    Mrs. Clinton. Thank you. We will look into that. But your concern 
and your feeling obviously goes far beyond your own case because people 
lose their jobs, then they lose their health care benefits.
    Q. But I was a loyal----
    Mrs. Clinton. And they can be loyal, hard-working people. And you 
don't deserve it. And when I think about that----
    Q. [Inaudible]--and they crucified me for no reason.
    Mrs. Clinton. We'll look into that, thank you.
    But what we are going to try to do is eliminate the problem. The 
problem should be eliminated so that when you lose your job, you still 
have insurance, you don't have to worry about it anymore.
    Q. [Inaudible]
    The President. Medical overbilling--there's a special provision in 
the plan that will enable us to do that.
    Again, if you have everybody covered in a uniform system, it will be 
much easier to see whether there is overbilling than there is now.
    Q. Your health care plan is great, great for people who have 
existing problems, also good for my grandma and her contemporaries. But 
what about my generation and my mom's? Will there still be enough money 
for these funds for our security?
    The President. Absolutely. Here's the thing. If we don't do 
something now, then there may not be enough money for adequate health 
care because we can't have another 10 years when the cost of health care 
goes up at 2 and 3 times the rate of inflation, so people pay more money 
for the same health care.
    And also, keep in mind, our plan covers things for your generation 
that aren't covered now like medicine and preventive care and mental 
health coverage, things that aren't covered now. So the answer to your 
question is your generation has a lot better chance if you pass a plan 
and we slow the growth of health care cost.
    We could stay here til tomorrow at dawn. You've been great being out 
here in all this hot weather.
    Thank you so much.

Note: The President spoke at 1:23 p.m. at Century Village East. In his 
remarks, he referred to Lawrence Smedley, executive director, National 
Council of Senior Citizens; Joanne Pepper, niece of late Congressman and 
senior citizen advocate Claude Pepper; Mark and Stacey Levy, son and 
daughter-in-law of the developer of Century Village; and Michael 
Dukakis, former Presidential candidate, and his wife, Kitty.