Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: ==> Clinton: Health Care Reform Speech
Supersedes: <92283.214946U56503@uicvm.uic.edu>
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Friday, 16 Oct 1992 00:39:52 CDT
From: <U56503@uicvm.uic.edu>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Information in the public interest which does not imply that it
is the opinion of UIC.  Contact 75300.3115@compuserve.com for
further information.
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CRISIS IN AMERICA: NATIONAL HEALTH CARE REFORM
REMARKS BY GOVERNOR BILL CLINTON
LITTLE ROCK, AR
8/3/92




Ladies & gentlemen, I want to read a brief statement, then I will
be happy to answer any questions you have.  Yesterday President
Bush talked about the "Grand Canyon of difference that defines us
on health care."

Maybe we are in a canyon because you can't be hear the hollow
ring of that rhetoric.  For 12 years, the president has said
little and done nothing about health care.  And his words make no
more sense today than they did almost 3 decades ago.  Yesterday
he compared our common sense effort to control health care costs
to the police state tactics with the K.G.B. and in 1964, he
called President Kennedy's plan for medicare socialized medicine.

Mr. Bush displays no passion for solving the medicare crisis, but
when someone else has the idea for making health care
available and affordable he goes ballistic.  For the past dozen
years, he's done nothing while health care costs have risen like
a patient's fever chart.

The average cost of individual health care costs rose from $1000
to $3000 a year -- but he did nothing.  Our country's annual
spending on health care increased in the decade of the 80's until
last year from $250 billion to $809 billion but he did nothing.

Thirty five million Americans, mostly workers and their families
have no health insurance, another 35 million don't have adequate
coverage, millions more live in fear that they'll have to pay
more for less insurance or lose their insurance completely --
he's done nothing.

Health care costs today are breaking our family budget and our
federal budget.  You can't be serious about cutting the federal
deficit unless you do something to get a handle on health care
costs, but he's done nothing.  And rising health cost has become
a drag on our economy.

Over the past dozen years, health care cost has become the number
one cause of bankruptcy and labor disputes.  I used to say that
health care costs add $700 to the cost of every American made car
but now that figure is $1,086.  Asking Americans to compete in
the world economy without doing anything about the health care
crisis is like expecting our track stars and gymnasts to compete
in the Olympics wearing led ankle weights.

Mr. Bush has done more to get us out of the health care crisis
than he's done to get us out of the economic crisis.  Yesterday,
the New York Times reported and I quote, "Mr. Bush expressed no
sense of urgency about the health care crisis until last November
when the voters of Pennsylvania spoke out loud and clear for a
national health plan and elected Harris Wofford to the U.S.
Senate."

Even now while our health care system is in critical condition,
Mr. Bush is prescribing the same old placebos.  What he calls a
health care plan does next to nothing to provide health insurance
to every American and nothing to control health care cost.
Health care cost is expected to reach 1.5 trillion dollars by the
end of the decade.  The average family health insurance will cost
$14,000 by the end of the decade, doing next to nothing to
control these costs as Mr. Bush proposes is throwing away the
costliest health care proposal on the table in America today.

I got a plan to control cost and provide affordable quality
health care to all Americans.  First, let's get rid of the fear
tactic.  I want to preserve what's best in our system.  A
family's right to choose the private doctors and hospitals who
provide the world's best medical care and the American ingenuity
that produce the world's most advanced medical technology.

We got to nurse the system back to health and make it work for
all Americans.  To begin with we got to take on the major
culprits of health care cost increases that have nothing to do
with health care itself.  The vast insurance cost, the
bureaucracy cost and the government regulation cost associated
with our present system which is the most inefficient in the
entire world.

We have to have insurance reform.  We have to require insurance
companies to go back to insuring people in broad community
groups, say that people can not be dropped or denied coverage for
pre-existing health conditions so that millions of Americans will
be able to change jobs again.  Second, to control the spiralling
cost of bureaucracy which is going up for most hospitals at 4
times the rate of the hiring of direct health care givers.  We
have to have a basic simple package of comprehensive benefits
which must be provided at a minimum by private employers or by
the government.  That will save tens or billions of dollars in
health care billing procedures.

Third, we have give people strong incentives to engage in managed
competition, to get into groups that provide a comprehensive
basis health care package that moves away from the incentives to
provide fee for services that drive cost up.

Fourth, we have to have targeted spending limits on a state
basis.

Fifth, we have to do something about the spiralling cost of drug
and medical equipment that are rising at a rate far in excess of
inflation.

Here in Arkansas, we know alot about this because our senator,
David Pryor has proposed some very innovative solutions to bring
drug prices back in line with inflation.  Next, we got to put a
basic set of health care clinics out in the cities and rural
areas of this country where there are not enough primary and
preventive health care services.

And finally, we need an aggressive program of health care
education in the schools and in the work place.  These are the
kinds of things that will hold down health care costs, save tens
of billions of dollars and enable us to phase in universal
coverage.  Rising health care cost is the greatest single burden
for American businesses both large and small.

Rising health care cost and the shrinking availability of
coverage are the greatest single fear for millions of Americans
families.  I think it is amazing that at a time when our health
care system is in critical condition, causing rampant insecurity
and worry and heartbreak to Americans all over this country.
Providing the single biggest cause of our budget deficit and
threatening to wreck our attempts to become competitive in the
global economy that this administration resists every, single
attempt to bring the American system in line with what our
competitors are doing.

The German system over the last five years kept health cost under
the rate of inflation while our cost went up by more than twice
the rate of inflation.  Mr. Bush does not have a plan of
treatment.  It is time to stop the politics of blame and fear
mongering and he should step aside and let an administration
govern that will finally tackle this health care crisis in a
serious way once and for all,for the benefit of the American
people and the safety and security of longterm health of the
American economy.

End of Remarks


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