[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 26 (Monday, July 4, 1994)]
[Pages 1357-1359]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's Radio Address

June 25, 1994

    Good morning. This morning I want to talk about the progress we're 
making in our drive to provide real health care security to America's 
working families. But before I do, I'd like to say a brief word about 
families who provide real national security for the American people.
    Earlier this week at Fairchild Air Force Base in Washington State, 
six people died and more than 20 others were injured when an unhappy 
former airman brought an assault weapon onto the base and opened fire. 
And now the men and women at Fairchild grieve again. Yesterday afternoon 
a B-52 bomber from the 12th Air Combat Command crashed at the base 
during a training mission. All four airmen aboard were lost. Their 
deaths remind us again of the hazards and risks involved in maintaining 
our security and the debt of gratitude we owe each of our military 
personnel. I want to send my condolences and prayers to the families of 
the airmen and the good people who will continue doing the hard work of 
freedom at Fairchild.
    After months of debate, health care reform is very much alive. And 
we have an extraordinary opportunity in the next few weeks to make sure 
that America joins every other advanced nation by guaranteeing health 
coverage to each and every citizen, not through a Government program but 
through private insurance and real opportunities for small business 
people and self-employed people to buy good insurance on the same terms 
that those of us in Government or people who work for big business can. 
I'm committed to making sure we don't miss this urgent opportunity.
    This week we had a historic development. For the first time in 
American history and after 60 years of reform efforts, committees in 
both Houses of Congress have approved bills that guarantee universal 
health coverage, coverage to all American families.
    Anyone who doubts the significance of this need only look at the 
last half century. President Roosevelt first tried to reform health care 
but couldn't get this far. President Truman tried several times and 
couldn't do it. President Nixon proposed universal health coverage with 
an employer-employee joint responsibility to pay for insurance, and he 
couldn't do it. President Carter also tried without success.
    These reform efforts never got to this point. Now that we've come 
this far, we mustn't turn back. Momentum is building toward a solution 
for the health care crisis. And as we settle on one, we must make sure 
we go to the root of the problems in the current system.
    Half measures, quick fixes, things that sound better than they 
actually will work, will only make matters worse. We have to help middle 
class Americans, whose economic success is the key to America's 
prosperity, know that they will always have health security, even if 
they have to change jobs or if they lose their jobs.

[[Page 1358]]

    The whole purpose of our economic program is to make it possible for 
hard-working Americans to reap the potential of a vastly changing world 
economy. We're not proposing to hand anybody anything but to help all 
Americans get the tools they need to have good jobs and strong families 
now and in the future.
    That's exactly what we have been doing. We've worked hard to get our 
economic house in order with tough deficit reduction and new investments 
in education, training, new technologies, the jobs of the 21st century. 
We've helped to restore the economy, and more than 3 million new jobs 
have been created since I took office last year. We've made a dramatic 
proposal to move people from welfare to work. We're creating educational 
and job training opportunities that will enable people to embrace 
change. We have a tough crime bill about to pass that will put 100,000 
more police officers on the street, with tougher punishment, better 
prevention for our young people, a ban on assault weapons. We'll have 3 
years of deficit reduction in a row for the first time since Harry 
Truman was President.
    But unless we address the health care crisis, these other measures 
will not do all they should for our people. Unless we provide coverage 
for all Americans, our economy will continue to suffer and more and more 
Americans will lack the security they need to take advantage of the 
opportunities that lie ahead.
    We've heard a lot about measures lately that wouldn't provide 
coverage to all families. But make no mistake, measures that are half-
hearted would at best, at best, guarantee that things stay only about as 
good as they are now. The poor would get health care. The wealthy would 
get health care. The middle class would get it sometimes and not get it 
sometimes, but they would be either left out into the cold or remain 
constantly at risk of losing coverage.
    Our strength in the world has always been the imaginative ingenuity 
of our middle class. But the lack of security about health coverage is 
putting a roadblock in the way of middle class Americans as more and 
more people have to change jobs more often. Today, 81 million Americans 
live in families with preexisting conditions that could keep them from 
taking better jobs or creating new businesses and already mean that 
millions of them either don't have health insurance or pay too much for 
it. If middle class Americans are held back by worries about their 
health care and the health of their families, they often can't do what 
they must to succeed.
    And people on welfare, who ought to become productive members of 
society, won't take jobs if it means giving up their health benefits. 
Just yesterday in Missouri, I met a woman who has moved from welfare to 
work but who says that when she loses her health benefits for her 
children, she's not sure she can stay working and may go back to 
welfare. We'll be telling our people that working hard doesn't count 
anymore when we ask people who leave welfare to go to work to pay taxes 
so that those who stayed on welfare can have health care for their 
children while they give it up. I know you believe we can't afford to 
send that message.
    We shouldn't assume that doing nothing will protect what we have 
today, either. Nothing is what we have done for years. And just this 
week, a new report showed that the percentage of Americans without 
insurance has gone from 12 percent to 15 percent of our population in 
the last 12 years. Now, that's over 12 million Americans who don't have 
health insurance. In the last 3 years alone, more than 3 million 
Americans have been added to the rolls of the uninsured. Even those with 
insurance today can't count on having it tomorrow unless we fix our 
system and fix it now.
    Actually, not all Americans face this kind of risk. Members of 
Congress, along with the President and all Federal Government employees, 
we have a great deal right now. We work for you, the taxpayers of 
America, and you reward us with health coverage that can't be taken 
away, even if we get sick. Not only that, we have a requirement that 
employers contribute most of the cost of our health plan--that's you, 
you're our employers--and we contribute some.
    Now, I believe every working American deserves these same benefits 
and that same guarantee. I think you ought to tell Congress that you 
believe the same thing.

[[Page 1359]]

    In the weeks ahead, special interests will again be spending 
millions of dollars, tens of millions, to block reform. I'm going to do 
everything I can to make sure that the concerns of hard-working 
Americans don't get drowned out.
    Harry Truman said it best about 50 years ago when he said, ``There 
is no other way to assure that the average American family has a decent 
chance for adequate medical care. There's no way to assure a strong and 
healthy nation.'' I believe 50 years is long enough to wait to make good 
on that promise. Let's do it this year.
    Thanks for listening.

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