    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 12 (Monday, March 28, 1994)]
    [Pages 567-569]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    The President's Radio Address

    March 19, 1994

        Good morning. Last week I saw American democracy at its best at an
    old-fashioned town hall meeting in Nashua, New Hampshire. We were in the
    Elm Street Junior High School, and people were asking me questions about
    all kinds of issues but most of them about health care reform. And then
    when the town meeting was over, a woman came up to me and showed me why
    it's so important for so many Americans that we fix what's wrong with
    our health insurance system. She gave me a photograph of her 7-year-old
    son whom she loves very much. She told me he's had serious health
    problems, and now she's afraid that he'll never be able to get any
    health insurance because he has what insurance companies call a
    preexisting condition.
        Everywhere I go, families come up and tell me we're got to do
    something about health care, and they're right. Here are the facts: Even
    if you have health insurance today, you can lose it tomorrow. The
    terrible truth is that 2 million Americans a month lose their health
    insurance, 58 million Americans find themselves without insurance at
    some point during the year, and about 100,000 Americans a month lose
    their health insurance for good.
        The fine print in your insurance policy can cost you your coverage.
    Eighty-one million Americans have those preexisting conditions, just
    like the little boy in Nashua, that insurance companies can use to raise
    rates or deny coverage, and that as a practical matter, prevent many,
    many people from changing jobs because they know they'll lose their
    coverage. And three out of four insurance policies--

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    that covers 133 million Americans--have lifetime limits that cut off
    your benefits when you need them most. In other words, chances are your
    insurance plan is great unless you get really sick.
        Too many of you who do have insurance are paying more, getting less;
    your choices are more limited every year; your worries are increased,
    worries about losing the right to choose your doctor, increasing
    copatient deductibles, or losing insurance altogether. If we don't do
    something, we face a future of less choice, lower quality care, and
    larger bills. That's why we've got to build on what works and fix what's
    wrong with our health care system. And when you come down to it, America
    faces three choices: Government insurance for everybody, no guarantee of
    coverage for anybody, or guaranteed private insurance for everybody.
        Everywhere I go people tell me they support the idea that is at the
    core of our health reform plan: guaranteed private insurance for
    everybody, insurance that can never be taken away. Here's how our health
    reform plan works. First, we'll guarantee every American private health
    insurance with a comprehensive package of benefits that can never be
    taken away. Everyone will get a health security card that will guarantee
    these benefits as good as America's biggest companies offer and as good
    as your Members of Congress and your President get. Your benefits will
    include prescription drugs and prevention care, things that often aren't
    covered today. It's common sense to pay to keep people healthy, not just
    treat them after they get sick and when care is more expensive.
        Second, you'll have choices. That's the American way. You'll have
    the right to choose your own doctor and your own health care plan.
    You'll make that choice--you'll make it, not your boss and not your
    insurance company. We trust you to make the best choices to improve the
    quality of your health care.
        Third, we're going to crack down on abuses in insurance practices.
    No more dropping coverage or cutting benefits, no more raising rates
    just because you or someone in your family has been sick, no more using
    lifetime limits to cut off your benefits, and no more charging older
    people more than younger people. These are unfair practices, and we'll
    make them illegal. We'll make sure you can get affordable insurance you
    can depend on.
        Fourth, and this is important, we'll preserve and strengthen
    Medicare. Older Americans must be able to count on Medicare and to keep
    their doctors. We also want to cover prescription drugs under Medicare
    and to give people of all ages new choices for long-term care at home or
    in their community. There are so many people with disabilities, so many
    Americans who are in their elderly years who do not need
    institutionalized care but who can't get anything less expensive and
    more helpful because it's not covered today.
        Finally, we want your health benefits to be guaranteed at work. Most
    jobs come with health benefits, and all jobs should. Over two-thirds of
    the small businesses in this country provide health insurance to their
    employees. But 8 of 10 Americans who have no insurance are in working
    families. These Americans deserve better. And our health reform plan
    will guarantee health benefits at work. Small businesses will get these
    health insurance premiums at a discount. And we in the Government will
    help to cover the unemployed.
        The defenders of the status quo are trying to confuse this issue by
    making it sound complicated. Well, the present system is complicated,
    and so there are a lot of details to deal with. But the basic principles
    of health reform are really pretty simple. You'll get a health security
    card; you'll pick any doctor you want; you'll fill out one simple form
    when you need care; you'll know exactly what's covered; and you'll have
    peace of mind for a change, because your health security and that of
    your family can never be taken away.
        A few weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal explained our health reform
    to some citizens of York, Pennsylvania, without telling them whose plan
    it is. The great majority of that group strongly supported our health
    reform principles over all the competing plans. And the headline in the
    Wall Street Journal reads: ``Many Don't Realize It's Clinton's Plan They
    Like.''
        Next week and in the months ahead, I'm going to tell people all
    across America about our health reform plan and what it really

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    means: guaranteed private insurance, a choice of doctors and health
    plans, outlawing unfair insurance practices, preserving Medicare,
    guaranteeing health benefits at work. It's that simple.
        I want to cut through the complexity, the confusion, and downright
    distortions. This issue should be decided by informed citizens, not by
    special interests spending millions of dollars to prevent progress and
    to promote their own narrow interest.
        Let's face the facts, debate our choices, and make an historic
    decision to build on what's best and fix what's worst in our health care
    system. That's democracy at its best, just like the old-fashioned
    American town meeting I attended in New Hampshire last week. And the
    lesson of history is that when the American people have the information
    they need, they do make the right decision.
        Thanks for listening.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:06 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White
    House.