[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 9 (Monday, March 6, 2000)]
[Pages 432-434]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Patients' Bill of Rights Legislation

March 2, 2000

    The President. Thank you very much. Thank you, and good morning. Dr. 
Herald, thank you for your powerful statement. I would like to thank 
Senator Kennedy, Senator Specter, Senator Chafee for being here; and 
Representatives Norwood and Dingell, Representatives Berry, Morella, and 
DeLauro; Secretary Shalala; Secretary 
Herman.
    I especially thank the doctors and nurses who stand with us today, 
the Patients' Bill of Rights coalition, representing our Nation's

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top health, consumer, and provider organizations.
    Dr. Herald's testimony was powerful but, unfortunately, as she made 
it clear, not unique. For more than 2 years, we've heard health care 
professionals tell us the same thing. For more than 2 years, we've heard 
heart-wrenching accounts of families across our Nation denied the basic 
patient protections they need. For more than 2 years, we've worked for a 
strong, enforceable Patients' Bill of Rights that says you have the 
right to the nearest emergency room care, the right to see a specialist, 
the right to know you can't be forced to switch doctors in the middle of 
a treatment, the right to hold your health care plan accountable.
    Along the way, with the help of others in our administration, I've 
done everything I could, through executive action, to extend patient 
safeguards to some 85 million Americans who get their health care 
through Federal plans, to provide similar patient protections to every 
child covered under the Children's Health Insurance Program. But no 
State law and no executive action can do what Congress alone has the 
power to do. Only Federal legislation can assure all Americans and all 
plans get all the patient protection they need.
    Thanks to the leadership of Congressman Norwood, Congressman 
Dingell, and the other Members here, the House of Representatives passed 
such a bill, with the support of 275 Members, including 68 members of 
the Republican caucus. It is a truly bipartisan bill.
    Later today a conference committee will meet to take up the 
legislation. Many of the conferees do not reflect the will of the 
majority in the House or the will of the majority in the country. I told 
Congressman Norwood right before we came in here that I think this issue 
is the only issue with which I have dealt since I've been President that 
generated any controversy where there is, in the country, almost no 
difference in the level of support between Republicans, independents, 
and Democrats. Every major national survey shows that well over 70 
percent of all Americans, without regard to their political party, 
support a strong, enforceable Patients' Bill of Rights. The American 
people support it, and they're entitled to have their elected 
Representatives ratify it.
    The Norwood-Dingell bill is the only bipartisan patient protection 
bill on the table. So far, it's the only bill that can make its way to 
my desk. I will not sign legislation, as Dr. Herald said, that is a 
Patients' Bill of Rights in name only. It's not a real Patients' Bill of 
Rights if it denies people the right to see a specialist, if it fails to 
guarantee access to the nearest emergency room care, if it denies the 
right to stay with a health care provider throughout a course of 
treatment, and if it has a weak appeals process that's tilted against 
the patients, if it doesn't include a strong enforcement mechanism to 
hold a health care plan accountable, or if it leaves more than 100 
million of our fellow Americans out. We need a bill that covers all our 
fellow citizens, not one that provides cover for special interests.
    Again I say, this is not a partisan issue anywhere else in the 
entire United States of America. And I am honored that we have had the 
bipartisan support we have had. This legislation has the endorsement of 
more than 300 health care and consumer groups across our country. So as 
the conference committee gets down to business, I ask them to listen to 
the voices of people like Dr. Herald, the people who live in the health 
care system, the people who know how it works, the people whose first 
concern is for their patients and their families and their future. It is 
time to reach across party lines and do this.
    Let me say that if the Congress will send me a strong, enforceable 
Patients' Bill of Rights today, I'll send every one of them an 
invitation to a signing ceremony tomorrow. [Laughter] Nothing would 
please me more than to see this issue removed from the context of 
partisan political debate and embedded in the daily lives of all our 
citizens.
    It is now my privilege to present the sponsor of the Norwood-Dingell 
bill, a long-time

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dentist, a man who has simply acted on his convictions and his 
experience. And I think we would all do well to listen to him. It's 
probably a little harder for him to come out for this bill than it was 
for me, and I feel particularly indebted to Congressman Charlie Norwood.
    Representative Norwood.

[At this point, Representatives Charlie Norwood and John D. Dingell and 
Senators Arlen Specter and Edward M. Kennedy made brief remarks.]

    The President. Well, I just want to end on sort of a cautionary but 
clarion note. Where I come from, this exercise that we have just engaged 
in is known as preaching to the saved. [Laughter] And it's very 
important. But this is one of those examples where the public and the 
people that really know how the system works are in the same place. And 
I believe a majority of Members of Congress, if--as Congressman Norwood 
said so eloquently, if they're permitted--they're given a good bill to 
vote for, they'll vote for it. So the only way that we won't get a good 
bill is if this conference committee prevents the Congress from voting 
on a bill they would like to vote for, that is consistent with not only 
what the majority of the American people want but virtually 100 percent 
of the medical professionals in the country and a majority of the 
Congress.
    So that's what the stakes are. I am profoundly indebted to the 
Members who are here, to all the health care professionals who are here, 
to Dr. Herald who spoke so well. But I ask you to remember the work is 
ahead of us. And I think we need to, all of us, each in our own way, go 
to work to impress upon that conference committee their profound 
responsibility to give the Congress and the country the bill they want 
to vote on and the bill they want to live under.
    Let's get to work. Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11 a.m. in Presidential Hall in the Dwight 
D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building. In his remarks, he referred to 
Mary Herald, member, American College of Physicians-American Society of 
Internal Medicine, who introduced the President.