[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book II)]
[July 31, 2000]
[Pages 1530-1534]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks at the David Barksdale Senior Center in Tampa
July 31, 2000
Thank you very much. Well, Sylvia made a
better speech than I can for this program. [Laughter] Let's give her
another hand. [Applause] Didn't she do a great job?
Paul Herrera, thank you and the Barksdale
Senior Golden Age Club for welcoming me here. I'm delighted to be here.
And thank all of you for coming out.
I want to thank Bill Nelson, your insurance
commissioner, for joining me here and for the work he's done to protect
Florida seniors from insurance fraud, and also the work he's done to
help enroll children in the Children's Health Insurance Program. I thank
him for that.
Mayor Greco, it's good to be back in your
great city. I love it here. I'd also like to acknowledge the presence in
the audience of your
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former Lieutenant Governor, now our Special Envoy to Latin America,
Buddy MacKay. Thank you for being
here.
This center was founded in 1942. It was then a place where Army and
Air Force personnel could enjoy it during off-duty hours. While the uses
of the Barksdale Center have changed over the years, the purpose hasn't.
It still serves those who served our Nation in uniform and in so many
other ways. As Paul Herrera has said, the Barksdale Center has become a
second home for many of Tampa's seniors and disabled citizens, a place
to take music classes, to learn the two-step--maybe I'm not too old to
learn that--to get a nutritious meal, and a bedrock of security, a place
you can all rely on in good times and bad. I appreciate the work that is
done here.
For our Nation, these are good times, remarkably good times,
virtually without precedent in the history of America. Like the rest of
America, Florida is on the move. When I came to Tampa as a candidate in
1992, the unemployment rate was over 7 percent; today, it's 2.7 percent.
The Nation has created over 22 million jobs, with the lowest
unemployment rate in 30 years, the longest economic expansion in
history, with record deficits turned into record surpluses.
The question before the American people, as the Congress deliberates
and as the voters deliberate, is, what are we going to do with this
magic moment of prosperity? What is the best use of it? Will we think
about short-term gains, or will we think about what we should do for our
country over the long run for people of all ages, all races, and all
backgrounds and all income groups. I believe one of the most important
things we can do with our prosperity is to strengthen Medicare by adding
a prescription drug benefit.
Thirty-five years ago, when President Johnson signed Medicare into
law, he created a cornerstone upon which generations of Americans could
safely rest. Since then, Medicare has been a remarkable success and a
solid guarantee. Before Medicare, more than half of our seniors had no
health care coverage at all. Serious illness often wiped away in an
instant all the savings families had put away over a lifetime of hard
work.
Today, nearly every senior has the security of basic health
coverage. Poverty among elderly has fallen dramatically as a result, and
Americans over 65 have the highest life expectancy of all the world's
seniors. Any American who lives to be 65 today has a life expectancy in
excess of 82 years. People over 80 are the fastest growing group of
people in America in percentage terms. I hope to be one of them one of
these days. [Laughter] Yet, for all its success, as Bill Nelson made clear, Medicare simply has not kept pace with the
growing miracles of modern medicine.
The Medicare law was created at a time when patients' lives were
more often saved by a surgeon's scalpel than by pharmaceuticals, when
many of the lifesaving drugs we now take for granted did not even exist,
indeed, were not even thought of. Prescription drugs today can
accomplish what once was done through expensive surgery, and no one--if
we were creating the Medicare program today, starting from scratch, it
would not even occur to anyone to create a Medicare program without a
prescription drug benefit.
Adding a voluntary prescription drug benefit is the right thing to
do, but it's also, medically, the smart thing to do. Today, fully half
of Medicare beneficiaries don't have prescription drug coverage for part
or all of the year. And the cost of prescription drugs is taking too big
a bite out of the fixed incomes of too many seniors and people with
disabilities. You heard that today in the remarks that were made before
I came up here, in ways more eloquent than I could possibly express.
Sylvia's story, however, is not unique to
her. I'll bet it's repeated among a lot of you in this audience, and I
can promise you all across America, there are millions and millions and
millions just like her. Too many people literally are forced to choose
on a weekly basis between filling their prescriptions and filling their
grocery carts.
A Family USA report released today shows that the cost of
prescription drugs is continuing to increase. According to this report,
older Americans now pay an average of more than $1,200 a year for
prescription drugs, up from $559 in 1992. The amount is projected to
increase to more than--listen to this--$2,800 over the next decade. Here
in Florida, hundreds of thousands of seniors lack the benefits of
dependable prescription drug coverage. Thousands of others try to get
coverage through private Medigap insurance plans and managed care. Some
have succeeded only to be dropped later
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by their private care plans and left with nothing more than an empty
medicine chest.
In fact, just this year, nearly a million Medicare beneficiaries
around America, more than 85,000 in Florida alone, were dropped by their
managed care plans. For most seniors, that leaves only one alternative
to drug coverage: They can buy into a private Medigap plan, which can
cost hundreds of dollars a month for a benefit with a $250 deductible
and no protections against catastrophic drug costs.
Now, most of us tend to think of Medicare beneficiaries as seniors,
but in fact, 5 million of them are people with disabilities under the
age of 65. A quarter million of them live right here in Florida, too. As
difficult as it is for seniors to get affordable and dependable
prescription drugs, it's an even greater challenge for Americans with
disabilities.
Today I'm releasing another report that documents how Medicare
beneficiaries with disabilities are in poor health, require more
prescriptions, and are less likely to have private prescription drug
coverage. The report also shows that people with disabilities purchased
40 percent more drugs than the typical Medicare beneficiary. And like
seniors who lack drug coverage, they, too, pay more for the drugs they
do get.
On average, Medicare beneficiaries with disabilities who lack
coverage spend 50 percent more out of pocket for 50 percent fewer
prescriptions than those who have coverage. Let me say that again.
People without coverage spend 50 percent more out of pocket for 50
percent fewer prescriptions than those who have coverage. These drugs
aren't only lifesaving; they can help people with disabilities return to
work and make even greater contributions to their communities, people
like Patricia Fell, over here to my right who
came up with me on the stage, from Clearwater. She suffers every day
from a very painful hip condition. She has been a foster mother--listen
to this--to 87 children. And her daughter is here with us today, and we
welcome her.
She uses her disability check to pay her
$4,300 annual prescription drug bill. She would work full-time, but if
she did, she'd lose her disability check. That's what pays for the
prescription drugs she desperately needs. She told me that this is
continuing to be an agonizing choice for her.
Now, people like her, who have done
their part for our country and done way more than most people have to
help children in need, shouldn't have to make a choice between health
and work. A Medicare drug benefit would give Pat the chance to be as
healthy, active, and productive as she could possibly be.
That's why I have proposed a plan to provide a Medicare prescription
drug benefit that is voluntary and accessible to all seniors and all
Americans with disabilities; a plan that ensures that all older
Americans and other eligible Americans with disabilities, no matter
where they live or how sick they are, will pay the same affordable $25 a
month premium; a plan that uses price competition, not price controls,
to give seniors and people with disabilities the best price as possible;
a plan that would cover catastrophic drug costs; a plan that provides
beneficiaries the prescriptions they need at the pharmacies they trust;
a plan that is part of an overall effort to strengthen and modernize
Medicare and lengthen its life so that we will not have to ask our
children to shoulder the burden of the baby boom generation when we
retire.
Now, in response, the Republican majority in Congress has passed a
private insurance plan that many seniors and people with disabilities
simply will not be able to afford. You see that already with the Medigap
plan. It won't offer affordable and accessible coverage to all seniors.
It relies on a trickle-down scheme that provides a subsidy for insurers
but not a single dollar for middle class seniors and people with
disabilities. And let me say this: Over half the seniors and people with
disabilities who lack affordable insurance coverage today have incomes
above 150 percent of the poverty line, which is about $12,600 for an
individual senior, about $16,600 for a couple.
Now, I'm President; I'm not supposed to say it's a bunch of baloney,
like Sylvia did. [Laughter] But you might be
surprised to know who agrees with her--the insurance companies,
themselves. Even the insurance companies concede that a Medigap
insurance model will not work for prescription drug coverage. This is
very, very important.
Here's what one insurance company had to say, and I quote,
``Private, stand-alone prescription drug coverage will not work. Such
coverage would constitute an empty promise to Medicare beneficiaries.''
Insurance companies are refusing to participate in such a program. The
State of Nevada tried to implement a private insurance model quite
similar to the Republican plan
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which passed through Congress. They could not find one single qualified
insurance company even willing to offer the coverage, because they knew
it couldn't be done at an affordable rate, and they didn't want to be
accused of perpetrating a fraud on the seniors in the State.
It's clear that this plan that passed with the votes of the
Republican majority is basically designed for the pharmaceutical
companies who make the drugs, not the seniors who take them. Now, why
would they do that? Because they believe that if we have a Medicare
program, we will be able to buy these pharmaceuticals in bulk and get
you a better price and because charging higher prices for Americans
recovers all the research costs of these drugs, and that enables them to
sell the drugs for a profit at much lower prices in other countries,
which is why I'm sure you've seen all these stories about people taking
buses to Canada to buy their drugs. Unfortunately, Florida is nowhere
near North Dakota, so that's not an option for most of you. [Laughter]
But that's what's going on here. And it's unbelievable to me.
What are we going to do with our prosperity? This week--and you may
hear if you turn on the television, the Republicans when they meet in
Philadelphia in convention talking about all their tax cut bills and how
wonderful they'd be for you. But what they don't say is that if you take
all their tax cut proposals in total, it spends the entire projected
surplus of the country for the next 10 years. Congressman Davis just came in, your Congressman--he was nodding his head.
So I want to acknowledge you. Thank you for being here, sir.
They spent--you know, they're trying to put the heat on him. They're trying to say, ``Well, people in Tampa ought to
be mad at him. He's not voting for all these tax cuts. Aren't they
good?'' It kind of reminds me of going to a cafeteria. When I go to a
cafeteria, everything I see looks good. [Laughter] But if I eat it all,
I'll get sick. [Laughter]
Now, that's what's going on here. So they talk about all these
wonderful tax cuts. If they become the law, there will be nothing left
from the projected surplus for a Medicare prescription drug benefit,
nothing left to lengthen the life of Social Security and Medicare, so
when the baby boomers retire we don't break our kids and our grandkids,
nothing left to invest in the education of our children.
There's something else I'd like to say that all of you can probably
identify with. This is a projected surplus. This is what we think we'll
get over the next 10 years. Did you ever get one of those letters from
Ed McMahon? [Laughter] You know, it probably said, ``You may have won
$10 million.'' Did you ever get one? ``You may have won $10 million.''
Now, if you went out and spent the $10 million the next day, you should
support their plan. [Laughter] But, if not, you ought to think again
there.
When you cut these taxes, the money's gone. And I think it's wrong
to spend it all. Just this week we released a report that showed that
one of their spending proposals, the total repeal of the estate tax,
would benefit only 4,300 families in Florida, with an average tax cut of
$434,000. Now, I think there ought to be some changes in the estate tax.
I think the rate's too high. I think too many family businesses are
burdened by it. And I'm all for changing it. I've offered to change it.
But to completely repeal it without taking account of the need here for
prescription drugs is a big mistake.
While 4,300 families in Florida would benefit from the estate tax
repeal, the Medicare prescription drug benefit would provide affordable
coverage to more than 2.7 million seniors and people with disabilities
in Florida. Their average income is $18,600.
Even by Congress's own optimistic efforts, I will say again, these
tax bills leave nothing for Medicare, for lengthening the life of Social
Security, and for the drug program, or for education for our children,
plus which, they'd make it impossible for us to pay this country out of
debt by 2012. One of the things I've been trying to do is get us out of
debt. We quadrupled the debt of the country in the 12 years before I
took office, and we're trying to get rid of it. If we get rid of it,
interest rates will be lower; incomes will be higher; people will pay
less for home mortgages--$250 billion over 10 years, by our estimates--
less for car loans, less for college loans. That's the equivalent of a
big tax cut, lower interest rates. So I think this is very, very
important.
Now, there is a better way. The budget that I gave the Congress
continues our fiscal discipline. It would get us out of debt by 2012,
for the first time since 1835, and it would put us in great shape for
the 21st century. It would extend the life of the Social Security Trust
Fund by more than 50 years. It would extend the
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life of Medicare by over 30 years. Medicare was supposed to go broke
last year when I took office.
It provides, believe it or not, tax cuts--affordable tax cuts--to
help people send their kids to college, pay for long-term care for the
elderly and disabled--a big deal--pay for child care, pay for retirement
savings, allow people between the ages of 55 and 65 to buy into Medicare
and give them a tax benefit to do so, because so many of them have lost
their insurance, and provide marriage penalty tax relief. And believe it
or not, our plan only costs one-fourth as much as theirs does, but it
would provide more benefits to 80 percent of the people.
So there is a way to have a tax cut here and have the money to pay
for the Medicare prescription drug program, to lengthen the life of
Medicare and Social Security, to invest in the education of our
children. And believe it or not, I still leave a lot of this projected
surplus alone, in my budget, in case it doesn't materialize, or in case
it does materialize, the next President and the next Congress can make a
judgment about what to do with it. I just don't believe in spending all
this money before it comes in. We've tried it before, and it didn't work
out too well.
So I hope that all of you will raise your voices. This is not a
partisan political issue in America. When you go to the pharmacist to
fill a prescription, nobody asks you whether you voted Republican or
Democrat for the last 40 years. Nobody asks whether you vote at all.
You're just a person, and you need the medicine. It should not be a
partisan political issue in Washington. We have the money. We can do it,
provide a tax cut, invest in our children, and still get the country out
of debt. All we have to do is decide what our priorities are, how much
we care about it, how much people like the people on this stage and in
this room matter to us, and what kind of America we want to live in.
So I ask you all, because it's not a partisan issue out here, do
what you can with your Senators and your Representatives. Raise your
voices. Tell them it shouldn't be a partisan issue in Washington. You've
got a lot of lives depending on it. And it's only going to become more
and more important.
You know, we're on the verge of breakthroughs for Parkinson's, for
various kinds of cancers, with the human genome project, which I'm sure
you read about. We've now sequenced the human gene in its entirety. It
won't be long; in the next 10 years, it's going to take your breath away
what we learn how to correct in terms of human health problems.
I believe that these young children here will, themselves, have
children that will have a life expectancy at birth in excess of 90
years. But if we want to do this--this is a high-class problem--I
believe people with disabilities will find ways to remedy a lot of the
disabilities, and they will be able to live longer and better lives and
have more options. But all of that will require us to rely more heavily
on medicine--not less, more.
We have put this off long enough. We finally have the money to do
it. And I think, as a country, we're morally obligated to do it. So I
ask you to raise your voices. Stick with us. Let's keep working on it
until we get it done.
Thank you, and God bless you.
Note: The President spoke at noon in the activity room. In his
remarks, he referred to Paul Herrera, president, Barksdale Center Golden
Age Club; Bill Nelson, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Florida;
Mayor Dick A. Greco of Tampa; senior citizen Sylvia Kessler, who
introduced the President; and Ed McMahon, Publishers Clearing House
Sweepstakes spokesperson.