[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.