[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 50 (Monday, December 20, 1993)]
[Pages 2603-2604]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to Physicians Supporting the Health Security Plan

 December 16, 1993

    Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, all of you, for being 
here. And I want to say a special word of thanks to the physicians who 
have joined us here today; to Secretary Shalala and to Ira Magaziner and 
to the First Lady for all the work they have done. I thank especially my 
longtime friend and one of our family's physicians in the past, Dr. 
Betty Lowe, and I thank Dr. Bill Coleman, for the remarks that they 
made.
    You know, I can't help but note right here at the outset that, I 
think it was just yesterday or the day before, one of the congressional 
opponents of our approach said that it was Socialist. When I heard that 
Alabama accent and that Arkansas accent--we've got a doctor from rural 
Mississippi here and another one from North Carolina--I thought these 
people do not look like a bunch of Socialists to me. [Laughter]
    I'll tell you what they do know. They know that it's not easy to be 
a doctor in the world today. They still know what it's like to deliver a 
baby in the middle of the night or to get a call at daybreak from a 
mother whose child has a 102 fever or to care for an asthmatic patient 
for whom every breath is a struggle. They know what it's like to really 
make people's lives better, to save people's lives, and to maintain in a 
very personal way the quality of American medicine as the finest in the 
world. And I'm convinced that they would not do anything to weaken that 
quality and are here because they want to work with us to improve it and 
make it available to all Americans.
    More than anything, these leaders and the physicians whom they 
represent, many of whom are in the audience today, understand the 
problems of a health care system in which millions live in fear of 
losing their coverage while costs keep rising, in which last year over 2 
million Americans did lose their coverage so that at the latest count we 
are up to nearly 39 million Americans without health insurance. They 
know that we have to fix what's wrong with this system without messing 
up what's right.
    Our plan strengthens and restores what is best about our medicine 
and places the doctor-patient relationship back at the heart of the 
American health care system. It protects the American people's cherished 
right to choose their doctors. Indeed, it enhances that right by making 
it clear that people not now insured cannot be put into plans where they 
have no choice of doctors, something which is happening increasingly to 
Americans already under the present system and will continue to increase 
if we do nothing.
    Under our plan, individuals, not their employers, have the freedom 
to choose the health plan that best meets their needs and desires. That 
means they can stay with their family doctors. Our plan also guarantees 
much greater freedom for the patient-doctor relationship, guaranteeing 
that the doctor, who knows what is best for the patient, and not some 
insurance or Government bureaucrat will make the decisions about care.
    And finally, of course, as has been said, this plan supported by 
these doctors guarantees universal coverage through the requirement of 
private insurance mandated in each employment unit with a system of 
discounts for small businesses and businesses that have a lot of low-
wage employees. Now, I think that is very, very important to emphasize. 
These physicians here represent over 300,000 American physicians. They 
know

[[Page 2604]]

that if we're ever going to control the cost of health care and provide 
quality health care to everyone, we simply have to have universal 
coverage. It is not only an ethical imperative; it is a practical 
necessity.
    They also are in the best position to judge the importance of a 
universal coverage requirement that has comprehensive benefits, 
including primary and preventive care coverage. We have spent ourselves 
a fortune of money in America by not taking care of primary and 
preventive health care in health insurance policies. It has been a big 
mistake, and we have paid for it.
    I appreciate their support for holding down the cost increases. I 
certainly appreciate their support, as you would expect, for the 
proposition that the significant amount of taxpayer money that goes into 
medical education should be now used to encourage more primary and 
family practitioners in a country in which we are now, frankly, 
graduating a disastrously low number of family doctors from our medical 
schools.
    I am most grateful, however, again, because the presence of these 
physicians here debunks the notion that the plan we have presented is 
some sort of big Government, bureaucratic plan that erodes the doctor-
patient relationship and reestablishes its basic principles. Every other 
advanced country in the world has figured out how to cover their 
citizens but us. And we're spending 50 percent more of our income on 
health care than most countries. And too much of it is going to people 
who are not doctors, who are not nurses, who are not providing hospital 
or clinical care, but who are just shuffling papers in a maze that is 
the most bureaucratic, complicated system on the face of the Earth 
today.
    Now, I also want to say that this morning I received a letter, an 
interesting letter from the American Medical Association, which 
represents fewer than 300,000 doctors, but still a substantial number--
just not as many as are represented on this stage, but still a large 
number--reaffirming, reaffirming the support of the AMA for universal 
coverage and clarifying the position taken by the house of delegates 
recently, in which Dr. Todd says that they are still for universal 
coverage, that they are not opposed to an employer mandate, but that 
they think other options for achieving universal coverage in addition to 
an employer mandate should be considered. And I appreciate that, and I 
think we all should.
    I do not wish this debate in this coming year to become unduly 
partisan, both within the medical community or the American political 
community. The truth is that all Americans have a common interest in 
universal coverage, primary and preventive care, slowing the rate of 
medical inflation, and reducing the incredible bureaucracy and 
regulatory intrusion into the health care system. All Americans have a 
common interest in that. They have an economic interest; they have a 
human interest, every family.
    As I have said many times, there are very few families in this 
country that are not at risk of losing their health care. Most of them 
just don't know it until they lose it, their coverage. So we all have a 
common interest. And at this holiday season I would hope that we could 
do away with the destructive and counterproductive labels. I would hope 
we'll all get a laugh when we think about this eminent panel of 
Socialists up here on the platform--[laughter]--and learn to laugh about 
that and in this holiday season remind ourselves that perhaps the 
greatest gift we can give to our country in common is a greater sense of 
community and security, a major portion of which is universal health 
care.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11:55 a.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive 
Office Building. In his remarks, he referred to Dr. Betty Lowe, 
president, American Academy of Pediatrics; Dr. William Coleman, 
president, American Academy of Family Physicians; and Dr. James Todd, 
executive vice president, American Medical Association. A tape was not 
available for verification of the content of these remarks.