[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 13 (Monday, March 31, 1997)]
[Pages 415-417]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in 
the Health Care Industry

March 26, 1997

    Thank you very much. Thank you, Secretary Shalala, Acting Secretary 
Metzler. Thank you both for the work you've done on this. I thank the 
Commission members for their willingness to serve, those who are here 
and a few who could not be here with us today. And I thank all of you 
here in this audience for your interest in this profoundly important 
matter.
    The Advisory Commission that I announced today will help to chart 
our way through a time of profound change in health care. Their task 
will be focused and urgent: to find ways to ensure quality and to ensure 
that the rights of consumers in health care are protected.
    Since I took office, we have been committed to improving our health 
care system, to making it more affordable, more accessible, while 
preserving its high quality. You have heard Secretary Shalala mention 
some of the things we have done together. We've worked with States to 
expand Medicaid to more than 2 million Americans who previously had no 
insurance. We reached across party lines to enact the Kassebaum-Kennedy 
law that provides that working families will not lose their insurance 
when they change jobs, increased the health care tax deduction for 3 
million self-employed Americans. And now in our budget plan, we have 
funds sufficiently targeted to extend coverage to as many as half of our 
10 million American children who still don't have medical coverage.
    We've worked to constrain costs. Just yesterday, I announced a new 
effort to combat the multibillion dollar problem of fraud and abuse in 
Medicare and Medicaid. Our balanced budget proposal also strengthens 
Medicare through savings and overdue structural reforms.
    Of course, we're not alone in this. The private sector has found 
ways to rein in costs, sometimes dramatically. And in many cases, 
changes in the health care delivery system have, frankly, also improved 
its quality. For example, the growing recognition of the value of 
preventive care, such as mammography screening, is saving and extending 
lives and the quality of life. This is all very encouraging. Step by 
step we have been working to expand access to health care, and today we 
take the next step.
    In this time of transition, many Americans worry that lower costs 
mean lower quality and less attention to their rights. On balance, 
however, managed health care plans, HMO's, PPO's, and others, give 
patients good care and greater choice at lower cost. Still, we must make 
sure that these changes do not keep health professionals from offering 
the best and the most medically appro

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priate services to their patients. Managed care managed well can be the 
best deal for our families. Whether they have traditional health care or 
managed care, none of our people should ever have inferior care.
    I am proud that the Medicare and Medicaid programs have taken the 
lead in responding to the quality concerns of both patients and health 
care providers, as Secretary Shalala has just described. But we're 
learning the defining, measuring, and enforcing quality is far from a 
simple task. There are many complicated issues. They require thoughtful 
study. And not surprisingly, there are many areas where broad-based 
consensus on how best to proceed does not yet exist.
    That is why I decided late last year to establish the Advisory 
Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the health care 
industry. Today I am happy to introduce the members of that Commission 
to the American people. They are a highly distinguished, broad-based, 
and diverse group. They represent consumers, business, labor, health 
care providers, insurers, managed care plans, State and local 
governments, health care quality experts. Their specialties are wide-
ranging, including care for children, the elderly, women, people with 
disabilities, mental illness, or AIDS. This Commission includes some of 
the best health care policy minds in our Nation and a lot of people with 
hands-on experience. Its task will be as challenging as it is critical.
    Today, to assure that they get busy right away, I am charging the 
Commission to develop a consumer bill of rights so that health care 
patients get the information and care they need when they need it. Let's 
assure that patients and their families: first, that the health care 
professionals who are treating them are free to provide the best medical 
advice available; second, that their providers are not subject to 
inappropriate financial incentives to limit care; third, that our 
sickest and most vulnerable patients, frequently the elderly and people 
with disabilities, are receiving the best medical care for their unique 
needs; fourth, that consumers have access to simple and fair procedures 
for resolving health care coverage disputes with plans; fifth, and 
perhaps most important, that consumers have basic information about 
their rights and responsibilities, about the plans--the benefits the 
plans offer, about how to access the health care they need, and about 
the quality of their providers and their health care plans.
    I'm delighted that the Secretary of Health and Human Services and 
the Secretary of Labor will take on the task of being the Commission's 
cochairs. I look forward to reviewing their first report at the end of 
the year and their final report next March.
    The need for this Commission is real. It is urgent. It will give us 
a roadmap to help us make our way through the time of rapid change we 
now see in our health care system. There are few people in the Nation 
better suited to the task than the members of this Commission. And 
again, let me say, I want to thank them for their commitment to serve. 
And to all the rest of you, let me say one of the things--one of the 
many things I have learned in the last 4 years as President, is that a 
distinguished commission, broadly based with a clear mandate, can make a 
profound positive difference for our country.
    In the health care related areas, I ask you to think of only two. 
Think of the work done by the Gulf War Commission and what we now know 
that we did not know when they started to meet and work. Think of the 
remarkable work done by the Commission that dealt with those who were 
exposed to human radiation experiments just a few decades ago here and 
the work that they have done.
    There is a peculiar way in which the citizens of the United States, 
when brought together around a clear mandate interfacing with their 
Government and with the private sector, can do more than either the 
Government or the private sector could do alone.
    And so again, let me say, I'm very hopeful about this Commission. I 
look forward to their progress on the consumer's bill of rights. I look 
forward to all the work that they do. And I ask you to join me in 
thanking them for their willingness to serve.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 2:32 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Cynthia Metzler, Acting Secretary 
of Labor.

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