[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 37 (Monday, September 18, 2000)]
[Pages 2081-2085]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Departure for the Hay Adams Hotel and an Exchange With 
Reporters

September 14, 2000

Patients' Bill of Rights

    The President. Thank you so much. I want to begin, obviously, by 
thanking Dr. Anderson, the AMA, and the physicians who are here behind 
me from various medical organizations. I want to thank Ron Pollack, the

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director of Families USA, who has been such a long and tireless champion 
of health care.
    As is often the case when I get up to speak, everything that needs 
to be said has pretty well been said, but I hope to bring it into some 
sharper focus in terms of what will have to happen now in the next few 
weeks if we're going to actually get a real and meaningful Patients' 
Bill of Rights.
    Time is running out in Congress, and there is no more important 
piece of unfinished business. You see these numbers up here--18 million 
a year. We're trying to pass a minimum wage law. It will affect 10 
million people a year. We're very proud here that we reached across 
party lines to pass the family and medical leave law. It has affected 
about 25 million people in the first 5 years for which we have 
statistics.
    I have already provided the protections of the Patients' Bill of 
Rights to 85 million Americans who are covered anyway by Federal health 
plans. And yet, you see that the remaining Americans, nearly 200 million 
of them, have the experience that leads 18 million of our fellow 
citizens to suffer delay or denial of care over a year.
    Now, what are the rights in the Patients' Bill of Rights. Let me 
just state them one more time. We should never forget: The right to the 
nearest emergency room care; the right to see a specialist when 
recommended by your physician; the right to know you can't be forced to 
switch doctors in the middle of a treatment such as chemotherapy or a 
period of pregnancy; the right to hold your health care plan accountable 
if it causes you or a loved one great harm.
    Now, as I said, these are protections we have provided to 85 million 
Americans who get their health care through Federal plans. Fact: What 
did it cost to provide these protections? Less than a dollar a month. 
That's a fact. Even the Republican majority's Congressional Budget 
Office concedes that the costs to cover all Americans would be less than 
$2 a month. And only congressional legislation can provide all Americans 
and all plans the patient protections they deserve.
    Last fall, thanks to the leadership of Congressman Norwood, a 
physician and a Republican, and Congressman Dingell, a Democrat from 
Michigan, the House of Representatives passed such a bill with a 
majority of 275 Members, including 68 Republicans. Nearly a year later, 
I am confident we now have the votes to pass the very same bill with the 
same protections in the Senate if--big if--we can get it up to a vote.
    The bill's vital signs, in other words, are growing stronger, but 
it's still a near-run thing. If it were a tie, I know someone who would 
like to break it. And as Al Gore always says, whenever he votes, the 
people win.
    But this is not about politics. I was glad that Dr. Anderson said 
what he did. If you took a survey in any community in America except 
Washington, DC, there would be almost no difference in the opinion on 
this legislation between Republicans, Democrats, and independents.
    Now, let me remind you what the daily toll is. Ron's got the running 
total up there, but nearly 50,000 Americans every day face a delay or 
denial of care--nearly 50,000. Every hour, more than 2,000 people fail 
to get the treatment they need. We can't turn back the counter, but we 
sure don't have to run it up.
    And this is not about statistics. This is about real people with 
real problems who deserve real care so they can get on with real life 
instead of the politics of Washington, DC. That's what this Families USA 
tour is all about. It's about--let me just mention two--people like Joan 
Bleakley, who lost her sight in her left eye, in part because her HMO 
forced her to wait 3 weeks before seeing a neurologist; people like Doug 
Bolden--you will remember him if you went with me to Missouri to the 
Patients' Bill of Rights event down there--a big, burly emergency room 
nurse, whose patient was forced by his HMO to leave one hospital and 
travel more than 50 miles to another, suffered a heart attack and died 
along the way because he wasn't entitled to health care at the nearest 
emergency center.
    And believe me, these are not isolated examples. I've heard many, 
many more, and you've got the numbers here to back it up. So again, what 
this is about is whether the Senate leadership will let the votes be 
counted and allow a free and fair vote on Norwood-Dingell. The American 
people need to be reminded. The rules of the Senate, which

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were set up to avoid measures being dealt with too rapidly, give 
everything but our annual budget the option of being subject to a 
filibuster, which takes 60 votes, not 51, not a majority--60--to pass.
    Now, there is no question that this has been debated forever. We do 
not need any more time for a debate. And the people who aren't for this 
bill ought to just stand up and tell the American people why they're not 
for it and why they think the doctors, the nurses, and 300 other health 
care provider and consumer organizations are wrong, and the HMO's and 
the insurance companies are right. And then, they ought to let everybody 
vote.
    But it is an abuse of the filibuster to deny the majority of the 
United States Senate, representing an even bigger majority of the 
American people, a chance to have their way on an issue this fundamental 
to democracy.
    We don't need any more time to debate this. They don't need to put 
on the brakes to look at it again. This thing has been hanging around 
for 2 years now, and it's been debated in and out. It's time to listen 
to the doctors, the nurses, the patients, the other consumer and 
provider experts, to listen to a majority of Members of Congress, 
including the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, who 
would vote for this bill today. The bill should not be held up or 
watered down.
    Again, I am willing to reach agreement. We reached an honorable 
compromise on one major provision with opponents of the legislation in 
the Senate, which everyone could live with. But we cannot abandon our 
commitment to a bill that covers all Americans--all Americans--with the 
right to the specialists they need, the nearest emergency room care, the 
right to keep a physician during a course of treatment, the right to 
hold health care plans accountable, the right, in short, that allows 
doctors, not people who have no training in medicine and are concerned 
only with the bottom line to make these decisions; and also, a system 
that provides access to important clinical trials. In other words, a 
strong, comprehensive, enforceable Patients' Bill of Rights.
    We can do this. If we just let the Senate vote, we can put progress 
over partisanship, health care over special interests, and restore trust 
and accountability to our health care system. We should do it now. But 
every single American should know what's going on.
    In order to prevail on legislation that has the support of more than 
three-quarters of the American people, including 70 percent or more of 
every political group in America, we have to do one of two things: We've 
got to persuade the leadership of the Senate to let a majority vote on 
this, and if a majority's for it, to pass it; or we have to find 9 or 10 
more votes between now and the time they go home to break a filibuster 
that is, in my judgment, an abuse of the filibuster system. There is no 
debating this. Everybody knows what the deal is. Everybody what the 
differences are.
    Meanwhile, I will keep negotiating. I will keep trying, but I will 
not abandon the people who are part of these numbers up here, because 
I've heard too many of their stories.
    Again, I thank the doctors; I thank the nurses; I thank Families 
USA; and I thank all the American people. We can do this, and we can do 
it in a nonpartisan way, if we can just get the roadblocks out of the 
way.
    Thank you very much.

Wen Ho Lee

    Q. Mr. President, could you take a question? I was wondering, Mr. 
President, if you share the embarrassment that was expressed yesterday 
by the Federal judge in New Mexico about the treatment of Wen Ho Lee 
during his year of confinement under Federal authorities?
    The President. Well, I always had reservations about the claims that 
were being made denying him bail. And let me say--I think I speak for 
everyone in the White House--we took those claims on good faith by the 
people in the Government that were making them, and a couple days after 
they made the claim that this man could not possibly be let out of jail 
on bail because he would be such a danger of flight or such a danger to 
America's security, all of a sudden they reach a plea agreement which 
will, if anything, make his alleged offense look modest compared to the 
claims that were made against him.
    So the whole thing was quite troubling to me, and I think it's very 
difficult to reconcile

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the two positions, that one day he's a terrible risk to the national 
security and the next day they're making a plea agreement for an offense 
far more modest than what had been alleged.
    Now, I do hope that, as part of that plea agreement, he will help 
them to reconstitute the missing files, because that's what really 
important to our national security, and we will find out eventually 
what, if any, use was made of them by him or anybody else who got a hold 
of them.
    But I think what should be disturbing to the American people--we 
ought not to keep people in jail without bail, unless there's some real 
profound reason. And to keep someone in jail without bail, argue right 
up to the 11th hour that they're a terrible risk, and then turn around 
and make that sort of plea agreement--it may be that the plea agreement 
is the right and just thing, and I have absolutely no doubt that the 
people who were investigating and pursuing this case believe they were 
doing the right thing for the Nation's security--but I don't think that 
you can justify, in retrospect, keeping a person in jail without bail 
when you're prepared to make that kind of agreement. It just can't be 
justified, and I don't believe it can be, and so I, too, am quite 
troubled by it.
    Q. Mr. President, can you explain to me, are you thinking in terms 
of clemency for him, for Wen Ho Lee?
    The President. I'd have to look at that. It depends on, if he's in 
fact--he has said he's going to plead guilty to an offense which is not 
insubstantial, but it's certainly a bailable offense, and it means he 
spent a lot of time in prison that any ordinary American wouldn't have, 
and that bothers me.

Visit of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee of India

    Q. Mr. President, tomorrow morning, right here on this lawn, you are 
going to welcome the Prime Minister of India who spoke today on Capitol 
Hill, and he's calling for stronger U.S.-India security relations and 
also fighting against terrorism around the world, especially across the 
border from Indian border--across-border terrorism. So what do you 
think, sir, coming out from this historical visit and, also, following 
your visit in March that you've been in India?
    The President. Well, first, I am delighted that the Prime Minister 
of India is coming here after my trip there, and I was honored to be the 
first President in over 20 years to go. They're the world's largest 
democracy. We need to have a better and closer and more constructive 
relationship with them, and I hope that this will be the next step in 
that, and I think we'll make some specific agreements.
    The United States is strongly opposed to terrorism in any form, and 
I still hope that, if not while I'm here, then in the future, because of 
the groundwork we've laid, the United States can play a positive role to 
a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute, which has been at the core 
of the difficulties between India and Pakistan for more than half a 
century now.
    If you look at how well--I will say this again--if you look at how 
well the Indians, the Pakistanis, and the Bangladeshis who have come to 
America have done, the extraordinary percentage of them that are 
involved in the hi-tech economy, the professions, building our country 
across a broad range of areas, it is tragic to think of what this 
conflict has done to hold back the people who live on the Indian 
subcontinent, who are still all of them living on around $500 or less a 
day, on average, and who have proven by their stunning success in this 
country, that they have the ability to be at the cutting edge of the 
21st century.
    So I hope they can lay this burden down, and I hope we can help 
them, and in the meanwhile, of course, we'll have to oppose terrorism in 
all its manifestations.
    Thank you very much.

President's Upcoming Visit to Vietnam

    Q. Mr. President, could you explain to the American people about 
Vietnam? Why you've decided to go?
    The President. [Inaudible]--another press conference with the Prime 
Minister tomorrow, and I will answer some more questions then. But I've 
got to leave.

Note: The President spoke at 1:07 p.m. in the South Portico at the White 
House. In his remarks,

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he referred to Dr. Edgar Ratcliffe (Andy) Anderson, executive vice 
president, American Medical Association.