    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2002, Book II)]
    [August 13, 2002]
    [Pages 1382-1385]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Health Care Security Session of the President's Economic
    Forum in Waco
    August 13, 2002

        The President. Thank you all for coming.
        Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. Mr. President, we're having a great session on
    medical malpractice and health care costs, the uninsured, and so on. And
    I've decided to pick several speakers to give you an update. And the
    first one I'm going to ask to give you a speech and an update is Grandma
    Green, Flora Green, who is an individual who is going to talk about
    Medicare. And she is a feisty little lady. So, I interrupted her----
        The President. Kind of like you, Tommy. [Laughter]
        Hi, Flora. Where are you from?
        Flora Green. Salt Lake City. I met you in
    Salt Lake City.
        The President. Of course.
        Ms. Green. Barbara's boy. [Laughter]
        The President. Thanks for coming. I thank you all for coming, by the
    way. I want you to know that economic security relies upon good health
    security. The two go hand in hand. And we understand that, and I want to
    thank you for sharing your ideas about how to make our society better
    for all of us.
        Flora, thanks for coming. I'm interested.

    [At this point, Ms. Green, a member of the
    Seniors Coalition, spoke about the need for choice in Medicare plans and
    suggested tax credits for Medigap premium and prescription costs.]

        The President. Thanks for coming. Medicare is a very important
    program. However, it has not changed with the times, and that's a fact.
    And the fundamental question

    [[Page 1383]]

    is, how do we change it with the times, so that seniors get the benefit
    of modern medicine, and they get to choose? That's one of the
    interesting debates in Washington, is should you allow--be allowed to
    choose?
        Ms. Green. Absolutely.
        The President. Well, I think so too, but others don't. Others want
    the Government to make those decisions for you.
        Ms. Green. Why should some bureaucrat tell
    me what to do? [Laughter]
        Secretary Thompson. Be nice now,
    Grandma. [Laughter]
        The President. Have you ever been to Washington? [Laughter]
        Ms. Green. I get past those watchdogs that
    protect the Members of Congress, those 29-year-olds that are running the
    country. [Laughter]
        Secretary Thompson. Mr. President, I'd
    like to move on to--[laughter]--more patient control. And I would call
    upon Lucinda Harmon to give you an update.
        The President. Oh, hi, Lucinda. Thanks
    for coming.

    [Registered nurse Lucinda Harmon discussed
    ways to promote independence for persons with disabilities, such as
    herself.]

        The President. Absolutely. Lucinda, where
    are you living?
        Ms. Harmon. I live in Salado, Texas.
        The President. Oh, yes. Right down the road.
        Ms. Harmon. Yes, sir.
        The President. And what are you doing?
        Ms. Harmon. I am an educational
    consultant. I build capacity in terms of community coalitions and grant
    writing. My company has brought in $2.6 million into the State and into
    the area, and I make $40 a month.
        The President. So you can get your Medicare benefits.
        Ms. Harmon. And Medicaid.
        The President. And Medicaid, right.
        Ms. Harmon. Yes.
        The President. Actually, we've made some progress on the Medicare--
    --
        Secretary Thompson. We are making
    progress on it.
        The President. ----in terms of income limitations.
        Secretary Thompson. Lucinda would like
    to introduce her dog too.
        Ms. Harmon. Yes. My dog is part of my
    personal choice. His name is Quintessential. Quint, baby, wake up.
    [Laughter]
        The President. Where is Quint? [Laughter]
        Ms. Harmon. He's a part of my individual
    program. Thank you so much, Mr. President.
        The President. He was afraid I was going to give a speech.
    [Laughter]
        Secretary Thompson. Mr. President, the
    next issue that you have a tremendous passion for is reforming the tort
    system, as far as medical malpractice.
        The President. Yes.

    [Secretary Thompson introduced Dr. Edward
    Hill, chairman, American Medical Association,
    who discussed the effect of malpractice lawsuits on liability insurance
    premiums.]

        The President. We've got a real problem. And what America's got to
    understand, the medical liability problem affects them for two ways:
    One, it runs up the cost of medicine; it just does. Large settlements
    and/or frivolous lawsuits makes your health care go up. That is a fact.
    And secondly, it--the liability situation denies some people health
    care.
        I met this guy from Mississippi. He's a fellow that came down from
    Minnesota, he and his wife. They're pediatricians; they heard a calling
    to go to a poor community. And now they're leaving Mississippi. They
    were in the Delta, and they're leaving because the lawsuits are driving
    them out. Not only does the system drive up the cost for the people in
    the Delta--the poor people can barely afford it--now they don't

    [[Page 1384]]

    have a pediatrician, or two less pediatricians. And it's sad, and we
    need to do something about it, in that the--these liabilities, these
    lawsuits drive up the cost of medicine. It drives up the cost of
    medicine to the Federal Government as well, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans
    health benefits. So therefore, I believe the Federal Government ought to
    act.
        And we ought to have medical malpractice reform across the board.
    People ought to be able to recover their economic damages. If you get
    hurt, if somebody has mistreated you, you ought to have your day in
    court, and you ought to be able to recover what they call economic
    damages. People ought to be allowed to be treated fairly. But there
    ought to be a cap on noneconomic damages and on punitive damages. And we
    ought to have joint and several liability reform. This is a real
    problem. And I call upon Congress, Doc, and I
    call upon you to get the people in Congress to act, to understand the
    crisis. There are a lot of good docs who aren't going to be docs
    anymore, and people suffer, and that's not right. And so it's time to
    act on this. I agree with you completely.
        And the other thing people have got to understand is, these
    frivolous lawsuits--and there's a lot of them--are not only driving the
    cost of medicine up but denies people the chance to get their day in
    court. And that's a problem, and so we need to move.
        For a while, I thought that it ought to be done at the State level.
    When I realized the cost to the Federal treasury, I now believe we ought
    to have medical liability reform at the Federal level. And I'm going to
    push hard for it, and I need your help. The trial lawyers are very
    politically powerful, and they're strong. But here in Texas, we took
    them on and got some good medical--medical malpractice, which evidently
    had a few loopholes in it.
        Mr. Hill. Yes, sir, it did.
        The President. But we got some good tort reform across the board,
    and we need to do it here. We need to do it now in America, before it's
    too late. The patients get hurt, and the docs get hurt. And one of the
    things we've got to do is make sure the connection between the doctor
    and the patient is strong, and that it always remains intact, because
    that's one of the great things about our medical system.
        Anyway, thanks for bringing it up.
        Secretary Thompson. Thank you, Mr.
    President. Have you got time for one more subject?
        The President. Yes.
        Secretary Thompson. I'm going to call
    upon a businessman, David Ness, to talk about how difficult it is with
    health insurance and what they're trying to do to make sure that they
    have health insurance for their employees.
        David.
        David Ness. Thank you, Secretary Thompson.
        The President. Where do you live, David?
        Mr. Ness. Minneapolis, Minnesota.
        The President. Good.
        Secretary Thompson. It's a suburb of
    Wisconsin, Mr. President. [Laughter]
        The President. He tried that line in
    Minnesota, by the way. [Laughter]
        Mr. Ness. Like Wisconsin, we have 3 days of
    summer. [Laughter]
        The President. That's right.

    [Mr. Ness, vice president of benefits, Medtronic,
    Inc., described how his company reduced the rate of increase in employee
    health care costs, including establishing employee personal care
    accounts.]

        The President. Yes, medical savings accounts, whatever you want to
    call them, are very important for providing proper incentive and keeping
    the relationship between the patient and the doctor. I hope that
    Americans understand that if they walk 20 minutes a day, if they'd get
    out and exercise, the amount of money they can save for their families;
    that there is such a thing as preventative care; and by making right
    choices, that people can really save

    [[Page 1385]]

    a lot of money. And if the system encourages those savings, that in
    itself is just as well.
        I appreciate you bringing that up. We've kind of lost sight of who
    is responsible for what. Part of it has to do with the size of
    Government; part of it has to do with the health insurance phenomenon
    that has taken place. And the notion is to kind of--we talked about
    individualized medicine, but as you individualize medicine, individuals
    have to make better choices too. And that's going to be crucial for the
    future of the country.
        Listen, thank you all for coming. I promise you I will listen to
    what has been said here, even though I wasn't here. And we will distill
    the ideas and the comments. This is--this is an important subject for
    the country because, as I mentioned earlier, good health care will yield
    to better economic security. It's hard to feel economically secure if
    you're worried about your health. It's hard to feel economically secure
    if the health care systems don't enable you to really realize your full
    potential. And so the ideas that you bring forth are important.
        Tommy is doing a fabulous job running
    Health and Human Services. It's a--Health and Human Services, the budget
    and the amount of influence it has on our society is enormous. And Tommy
    is a good listener, and he's a pretty good actor too. He can get things
    done. ``Action man,'' we call him.
        But I want to thank you all for coming. I think you'll be impressed
    by the quality of folks who have shown up here. I don't know if you've
    had a chance to mingle, but it's--I've been very impressed. I've been
    very thankful that a lot of our national experts have come to talk about
    a variety of subjects.
        Really, what we're talking about is confidence in our future. I've
    got great confidence in the future of our country, because I understand
    America. I know what we're made out of. And obviously we've got some
    problems we need to address, but one problem we don't have to address is
    the fundamental character of the country. The fundamental nature of the
    American people are resilient and strong. We talked a little bit in
    these other seminars about how some have let us down, cheated, didn't
    tell the truth when it comes to their numbers on their balance sheets.
    And we'll find those and hold them to account. But by far the vast
    majority of Americans are really decent, honorable people.
        So thanks for coming to central Texas. I know it's a lot to ask to
    come here in the middle of August--[laughter]--but it's worthwhile. It's
    worthwhile. God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:08 a.m. in the Baylor Law Center at
    Baylor University.