[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[March 2, 2000]
[Pages 355-357]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on Patients' Bill of Rights Legislation
March 2, 2000

    The President. Thank you very much. Thank you, and good morning. Dr. 
Herald, thank you for your powerful statement. I 
would like to thank Senator Kennedy, 
Senator Specter, Senator Chafee for being here; and Representatives 
Norwood and Dingell, Representatives Berry, 
Morella, and DeLauro; Secretary Shalala, Secretary 
Herman.
    I especially thank the doctors and nurses who stand with us today, 
the Patients' Bill of Rights coalition, representing our Nation's top 
health, consumer, and provider organizations.
    Dr. Herald's testimony was powerful, but 
unfortunately, as she made it clear, not unique. For more than 2 years, 
we've heard health care professionals tell us the same thing. For more 
than 2 years, we've heard heart-wrenching accounts of families across 
our Nation denied the basic patient protections they need. For more than 
2 years, we've worked for a strong, enforceable Patients' Bill of Rights 
that says you have the right to the nearest emergency room care, the 
right to see a specialist, the right to know you can't be forced to 
switch doctors in the middle of a treatment, the right to hold your 
health care plan accountable.
    Along the way, with the help of others in our administration, I've 
done everything I could, through executive action, to extend patient 
safeguards to some 85 million Americans who get

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their health care through Federal plans, to provide similar patient 
protections to every child covered under the Children's Health Insurance 
Program. But no State law and no executive action can do what Congress 
alone has the power to do. Only Federal legislation can assure all 
Americans and all plans get all the patient protection they need.
    Thanks to the leadership of Congressman Norwood, Congressman Dingell, and 
the other Members here, the House of Representatives passed such a bill, 
with the support of 275 Members, including 68 members of the Republican 
caucus. It is a truly bipartisan bill.
    Later today a conference committee will meet to take up the 
legislation. Many of the conferees do not reflect the will of the 
majority in the House or the will of the majority in the country. I told 
Congressman Norwood right before we came in 
here that I think this issue is the only issue with which I have dealt 
since I've been President that generated any controversy where there is, 
in the country, almost no difference in the level of support between 
Republicans, independents, and Democrats. Every major national survey 
shows that well over 70 percent of all Americans, without regard to 
their political party, support a strong, enforceable Patients' Bill of 
Rights. The American people support it, and they're entitled to have 
their elected Representatives ratify it.
    The Norwood-Dingell bill is the only bipartisan patient protection 
bill on the table. So far, it's the only bill that can make its way to 
my desk. I will not sign legislation, as Dr. Herald said, that is a 
Patients' Bill of Rights in name only. It's not a real Patients' Bill of 
Rights if it denies people the right to see a specialist, if it fails to 
guarantee access to the nearest emergency room care, if it denies the 
right to stay with a health care provider throughout a course of 
treatment, and if it has a weak appeals process that's tilted against 
the patients, if it doesn't include a strong enforcement mechanism to 
hold a health care plan accountable, or if it leaves more than 100 
million of our fellow Americans out. We need a bill that covers all our 
fellow citizens, not one that provides cover for special interests.
    Again I say, this is not a partisan issue anywhere else in the 
entire United States of America. And I am honored that we have had the 
bipartisan support we have had. This legislation has the endorsement of 
more than 300 health care and consumer groups across our country. So as 
the conference committee gets down to business, I ask them to listen to 
the voices of people like Dr. Herald, the people 
who live in the health care system, the people who know how it works, 
the people whose first concern is for their patients and their families 
and their future. It is time to reach across party lines and do this.
    Let me say that if the Congress will send me a strong, enforceable 
Patients' Bill of Rights today, I'll send every one of them an 
invitation to a signing ceremony tomorrow. [Laughter] Nothing would 
please me more than to see this issue removed from the context of 
partisan political debate and embedded in the daily lives of all our 
citizens.
    It is now my privilege to present the sponsor of the Norwood-Dingell 
bill, a long-time dentist, a man who has simply acted on his convictions 
and his experience. And I think we would all do well to listen to him. 
It's probably a little harder for him to come out for this bill than it 
was for me, and I feel particularly indebted to Congressman Charlie 
Norwood.
    Representative Norwood.

[At this point, Representatives Charlie Norwood and John D. Dingell and 
Senators Arlen Specter and Edward M. 
Kennedy made brief remarks.]

    The President. Well, I just want to end on sort of a cautionary but 
clarion note. Where I come from, this exercise that we have just engaged 
in is known as preaching to the saved. [Laughter] And it's very 
important. But this is one of those examples where the public and the 
people that really know how the system works are in the same place. And 
I believe a majority of Members of Congress, if--as Congressman Norwood 
said so eloquently, if they're permitted--they're given a good bill to 
vote for, they'll vote for it. So the only way that we won't get a good 
bill is if this conference committee prevents the Congress from voting 
on a bill they would like to vote for, that is consistent with not only 
what the majority of the American people want but virtually 100 percent 
of the medical professionals in the country and a majority of the 
Congress.
    So that's what the stakes are. I am profoundly indebted to the 
Members who are here, to all the health care professionals who are here, 
to Dr. Herald who spoke so well. But I ask you 
to remember the work is ahead of us. And I

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think we need to, all of us, each in our own way, go to work to impress 
upon that conference committee their profound responsibility to give the 
Congress and the country the bill they want to vote on and the bill they 
want to live under.
    Let's get to work. Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11 a.m. in Presidential Hall in the Dwight 
D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building. In his remarks, he referred to 
Mary Herald, member, American College of Physicians-American Society of 
Internal Medicine, who introduced the President.