[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
[August 3, 1994]
[Pages 1415-1417]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to Health Security Express Participants
August 3, 1994

    The President. My fellow Americans, Congress has to decide whether 
it's going to listen to the insurance companies or to Jan Cox's last 
wish.
    We all know what the problem is here. You've just ridden a bus 
across the country, seeing real people who are just working hard, making 
the best they can of their lives, wanting a decent break. Those of you 
who have had these kinds of personal experiences that Daniel and Carolyn 
and John talked about can't figure out why we spend more than anybody 
else on health care, cover fewer people than any other country, and get 
poorer health results. It is because organized, intense, discrete 
minority interests are doing very well on a system that costs more than 
any other country's and covers fewer people. And every time you try to 
change it, they say, well, the world will come to an end.
    Well, like Hillary said, we ran for this job, along with Vice 
President and Mrs. Gore, because maybe we could be the home office of 
the ``American association of ordinary citizens.'' That's what we wanted 
to do. And every time we try to make a change, that's what they said.
    We showed up here; the deficit was going up, and the economy was 
going down. And I put together a plan, and I urged the people on the 
other side to work with me. And they said, ``No, if we vote for this, 
the sky will fall, the economy will collapse. And so we'll all vote 
against it and call it a big tax increase.''
    But the truth is the plan cut spending, raised taxes on the richest 
1\1/2\ percent of Americans, gave 15 million working people a tax cut; 
thanks to the Secretary of Education, gave 20 million Americans an 
opportunity to refinance their college loans at a lower interest rate. 
And, lo and behold, it produced a drop in unemployment and 3.8 million 
new jobs, and the sky didn't fall. Now the deficit's going down, and the 
economy's coming up. But it's hard to overcome these organized, intense 
interests.
    We had a different sort of fight over the big trade battle last year 
over on NAFTA. They said, ``If you do this, the economy will collapse.'' 
But lo and behold, the Congress, this time with a bipartisan effort, 
passed NAFTA, and we're exporting 5 times as many cars to Mexico as we 
were last year. They're our biggest, most growing market.
    Change is hard up here, because even though most Members of Congress 
were once just like you, when they get up here they're a long way from 
home, and they know that you and the President are presented to the 
folks back home partly through the rhetoric and the money spent by 
organized, intense minority interests.
    And somehow, some way, this fight has got to be about Daniel Lumley 
and Carolyn Mosley and John and Jan Cox. That's what it's got to be 
about. It's got to be about my friend Justin Dart, sitting back there, 
and all the Americans with disabilities who could be in the work force, 
making money, paying taxes, contributing to our future, if they could 
just get health insurance while they're in the work force; all the 
nurses who hired on to help people get well and instead spend all their 
time calling insurance companies to try to figure out if this or that 
procedure can be done by the doctor in the first place. Goodness only 
knows how many people we employ in this country that would be working 
more productively in any other country. We have to put hundreds of 
thousands of people to work every day to figure out who's not covered or 
what's not covered in an insurance policy. There's not anybody else in 
the world spending their time and spinning their wheels, putting people 
to work asking them to spend their entire working life reading the fine 
print of insurance policies to see what is not covered. Can you imagine 
a more unsatisfying thing to do with your life?
    Lee Brown, our drug policy leader, do you know why he's here today? 
Because if we could pass health insurance for all Americans, it would

[[Page 1416]]

include drug treatment for all Americans. Now, he's a policeman; he 
spent all of his life trying to lower crime and fight criminals, be 
tough on law and order. But he learned as a police officer that there 
are a lot of people in trouble with drug and alcohol abuse, and they 
need treatment. And we'd save billions and billions of dollars.
    And it's not like we don't know what to do. Twenty years ago, Hawaii 
said, everybody here is going to get insurance; we're going to have 
employers and employees cover their health insurance. And if you've 
never been to Hawaii--I hope you get to go someday; it's a wonderful 
place--but everything there is more expensive than any place else 
because it's way out on an island somewhere, everything except health 
care, where the premiums for small business are 30 percent below the 
national average because everybody pays and no one runs away and 
everybody is covered.
    And you ought to be taken care of, whether you're a young man riding 
a motorcycle in the prime of your life or a young woman giving yourself 
to nursing or a man following a religious mission to work at a Christian 
radio station or any other thing. It just ought to be that way.
    We have a consensus in this country on universal health care. What 
we do not have is a consensus among people elected to represent the 
American people on making the tough decisions necessary to get universal 
health care.
    There are lots of things like that in life. A bunch of us, including 
me, would like to be thinner, but we don't diet. [Laughter] A lot of 
people would like to be stronger, but they don't lift weights.
    In the end, it comes down, when you've got something everybody wants 
to do but is not easy to do, the people that hired on have to make the 
decisions. And the Members of the United States Congress hired on, just 
like I did. We didn't say, ``Vote for me in a representative form of 
government, and I will make all the necessary decisions to solve the 
problems of the country except those that are difficult, controversial, 
and make people mad.'' That was not the deal.
    And you need to hang around this town, and you need to tell your 
stories. Because the questions that I get asked are, ``Well, what about 
this detail or that bill, or who is up, or who is down?'' I say I have 
answered my question. My question is, am I for you or not? Answer: Yes. 
And secondly, second question, did I offer a plan to solve your problem? 
The answer: Yes. Third question, was I willing to meet people who had 
different ideas or better ideas more than halfway? The answer is yes.
    These bills provide for longer phase-in. They give less orders, 
fewer orders. And they give more options to smaller business; they give 
a better financial break to small business. They are less bureaucratic. 
We have listened to the American people, and Congress has presented 
bills to do that. They've bent over backwards to recognize that the 
American people want options, and they don't like to be told to do 
anything. I don't blame them. Nobody likes that. But the conservative 
thing to do is to ask everybody to carry as much of their own load as 
they can and then for the rest of us to help.
    Those who are opposed to universal coverage say, ``We've got a whole 
class of people we're not going to ask to carry any load at all, and 
we'll ask everybody who's already doing their part to do even more.'' I 
think we have the conservative position, my fellow Americans, the 
responsible position. Everybody should do what they can, and then we'll 
help those who need more.
    I just want to ask you to remember this: Make this debate about John 
and Jan Cox, about the story Carolyn Mosley told, about the dreams of 
the future--teaching our children--that Daniel Lumley has, and about the 
personal stories that are here in this audience and all across America. 
Don't let it become part of some rhetoric, hot air, process, conflict, 
interest group deal. And say a simple word: We have moved; we have 
reached out to people of different views and different parties. This is 
not a partisan issue. I don't have any earthly idea what political party 
these three people are in or who they voted for for President, and I do 
not care. I want them to have health care.
    You make the debate about them, and remind the Congress that, just 
like the President, they signed on to represent ordinary Americans, to 
make the tough decisions and not to walk away. And this is a decision 
America has walked away from for 60 years. President Truman, three 
times, asked the American people to get the Congress to solve this 
problem, and the Congress said no. President Nixon, 23 years ago, asked 
the Congress to require employers and employees to split the difference 
and cover, with private health insurance, all Americans. Now,

[[Page 1417]]

it's been long enough, folks. I know we're supposed to deliberate up 
here, but we have now deliberated through three generations. [Laughter]
    Audience members. Pass it now! Pass it now! Pass it now!
    The President. Pass it now, for them and for you.
    God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 11:10 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Health Security Express riders 
Daniel Lumley, Carolyn Mosley, John Cox, and Mr. Cox's late wife, Jan.