[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 8 (Monday, February 28, 1994)]
[Pages 361-362]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Exchange With Reporters in Norwich, Connecticut

February 24, 1994

Health Care Reform

    Q. Are you troubled at all, sir, by word coming off the Hill from 
the likes of Chairman Pete Stark that the employer mandates and the 
alliances are in trouble, that he sees little if any chance of them 
getting through?
    The President. No. Mr. Stark has his own plan, and it's sort of a 
modified single-payer plan. So you wouldn't need the alliances if you 
did what he wanted, you know, if the Government paid for it all and 
fixed the price, if you had--just expanded for Medicare. But we see no 
evidence that beyond that subcommittee that that plan could pass.
    But on the other hand, he does want universal coverage, and he wants 
comprehensive benefits. And so I consider him an ally because he wants 
that. He's been in this area a long time, and he has a fixed view about 
how he thinks it should be done. And so anything that's sent to his 
subcommittee obviously he's going to try to--he's going to see that it 
reflects his view. We'll just see what happens.
    I think--but keep in mind, you've got that committee that a bill 
would have to come out of, and you've got two other House committees, 
then you've got two Senate committees. So you've got subcommittees in 
all the committees, five of them, and then the ultimate committees, and 
then the battle on the Floor. And this is just beginning.
    So I'm not concerned about it because I think what everybody's going 
to have to do is to ask and answer the questions that at least he's 
asked and answered: Are you for universal coverage? Do you want 
reasonable benefits? And all these people here who have written me these 
letters make the best case for having a simple, clear comprehensive 
system that covers everybody and that involves things like prescription 
medicine. And I know you've been briefed on the letters they wrote me 
and how the system's affected them. But I consider, therefore, even 
though Pete Stark has a totally different view about how it ought to be 
done than I do, what he wants to do is what I want to do.
    So I'm not troubled by that. We'll just have to see what comes out 
of that subcommittee, what comes out of the Ways and Means Committee as 
a whole, and where we go. I just think that the main issue now is going 
to be getting all the Members of Congress to sit down and ask and answer 
in a very calm and clearheaded way these hard questions that relate to 
making sure everybody has guaranteed private insurance, having the 
benefits be comprehensive to include pre- 

[[Page 362]]

ventive and primary care and things like this prescription-drug benefit 
that we're here to talk about. If that happens, than I think we're on 
the way to victory. We'll work out everything else, but I'm going to 
have a lot of very good conversations with people in both parties who 
are interested in this to deal with those big questions. If you can get 
there, I'm convinced we'll work out the details. I'm not worried.

Note: The exchange began at 2 p.m. in Slater Hall at the Norwich Free 
Academy. A tape was not available for verification of the content of 
this exchange.