[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 27 (Monday, July 11, 1994)]
[Pages 1399-1401]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's Radio Address

July 2, 1994

    Good morning. On Monday, July 4th, we celebrate America's birth. Two 
hundred-eighteen years ago, our Founding Fathers pledged their lives, 
their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the untested idea of liberty, 
equality, and democracy.
    Those ideas have survived and thrived because they're at the heart 
of the only system of government we know that produces wisdom from 
debate and consensus from division. Indeed right now, we're seeing how 
our democratic process can produce results that constantly renew the 
pledges of our Founders, and we're making substantial progress.
    I sought the Presidency because our economy was in trouble and 
because our Government wasn't working. We put in place an economic plan 
designed to restore the middle class and guarantee growth and jobs by 
cutting over $250 billion in spending; reducing over 250,000 Government 
positions; offering tax cuts to 15 million working families, 90 percent 
of our small businesses, and increases to about 1.5 percent of our 
people to ask them to help pay down the deficit.
    The result has been a remarkable recovery: 3 million jobs, a 1.7 
percent drop in unemployment, 3 years of deficit reduction in a row for 
the first time since Harry Truman was President of the United States. 
But the agenda for change requires more. It requires us to empower the 
people of the United States to do well in a world filled with change and 
competition.
    That's at the heart of the crime bill we're about to pass in 
Congress that will put 100,000 police officers on the street, enact a 
law that says, ``Three strikes and you're out,'' ban assault weapons 
that go with the Brady bill, and at the heart of our efforts, to reform 
the college loan program to make interest rates lower and repayment 
terms better so that no young person will ever not go to college because 
of the cost of a college education. We're going to make 20 million young 
college graduates eligible for these better repayment terms and issue $1 
billion of college loans next year under the better terms.

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    And we're on our way to providing the security of health care to 
keep all our families whole and give Americans the confidence and 
security they need to compete and win in a changing world. This is 
especially important now, when 81 million of us live in families with 
preexisting conditions, people who could lose their health insurance 
when they change their jobs. And we know the average American will now 
change jobs seven or eight times in a lifetime.
    The real choices on health care reform facing the Congress are 
becoming quite clear. For many, many months now, I have been fighting 
for private insurance coverage--not a Government program--for all 
Americans, along with provisions to make health care affordable to small 
business, to farmers, to the families with preexisting conditions. 
Interest groups and Members of Congress in the other party have 
criticized my plan, while many of them have said that they, too, are for 
full coverage for all Americans, but they offer no alternative to 
guarantee it.
    Now, I have been working on our plan to make it even less regulatory 
and more friendly to small business, to guarantee that no one would lose 
any benefits because of the plan's requirements.
    Finally, after months of criticizing our plan, the Republican 
leader, Senator Bob Dole, has finally proposed an alternative. Unlike 
our proposal, his idea of reform is really more politics as usual. It 
gives a little help to the poor, it's paid for by cuts in Medicare to 
the elderly, it requires no contribution from the interest groups that 
are making a great deal of money out of the health care system now and 
no contribution from those who are not paying anything now into the 
system, and it gives absolutely no help and security to the middle 
class, to small businesses and no guarantee of coverage to anyone. 
Estimates are that more than a million Americans would continue to lose 
their health insurance every month under this plan, most of them from 
hard-working, middle class families. It will help you a little bit if 
you're poor. It won't affect you if you're wealthy. But if you're in the 
middle, you can still lose your health insurance, and if you don't have 
it, it won't do much to help you.
    One aspect of the Dole plan is particularly disturbing. It was 
brought home to me this week when small business people from all over 
America came to the White House and urged us to reject this approach. 
They don't want any plan that will make it harder to do right by their 
workers. The Dole alternative leaves small businesses at the mercy of 
insurance companies who can still charge them more than big businesses 
or Government. And small businesses that do offer insurance will 
continue to pay much higher rates, because they'll have to give a free 
ride to their competitors who don't make any effort at all.
    Now, more than 620,000 small businesses have joined together to 
support the idea that we ought to have full coverage, universal 
coverage, for all Americans and one that requires the employers and the 
employees to contribute to that coverage. They know that without 
guaranteed private insurance for every American, small businesses that 
do cover their employees will have a harder time competing here at home 
and across the world.
    There's simply too much at stake as we try to prepare our citizens 
to take advantage of our global opportunities. We can't continue to 
handicap ourselves in that way. And not only that, it simply won't work. 
We know from the experience in some States that if you try to reform 
insurance practices and you don't do anything to help small business and 
individuals, what will happen is that more and more people will give up 
their coverage because it will get more and more expensive.
    For the last 50 years, our country has come close to health care 
reform a time or two, but we failed every time. Congressman Sam 
Gejdenson of Connecticut said this week that during that 50 years, our 
country has gone from the propeller to the jet airplane, from adding 
machines to computers, from the radio to virtual reality, but our health 
care system has actually gone backward in guaranteeing security to 
middle class families. That's right. In the 1980's, about 87 percent of 
our people had guaranteed health insurance. Now, only 83 percent of our 
people are covered.
    That's why the vast majority of Americans agree that universal 
coverage must be our goal. This time we have to move forward.

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In health care as in crime and education, our democracy is producing 
solutions that hold fast to our time-honored values, building on what 
has always been our greatest strength: people helping one another to 
take responsibility for themselves and their families, their 
communities, and their countries.
    On July 4th, we'll celebrate with family and friends at picnics and 
parades. But if you find a quiet moment, I hope you'll reflect on the 
lessons of our history and make this promise to yourself: to do the best 
you can to be a good American, to rebuild the safety of our communities, 
the sanctity of our families, the strength of our schools, the vitality 
of our economy.
    The best way to celebrate our freedoms is by renewing our democracy. 
We're trying to do that here in Washington by facing up to our 
responsibilities. I hope you'll urge us to do that as well.
    Thanks for listening, and best wishes for a wonderful holiday.

Note: The address was recorded at 7:02 p.m. on July 1 in the Roosevelt 
Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on July 2.