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PORTIONS THAT DO NOT REFER > TO HEALTH-CARE REFORM HAVE BEEN OMITTED. > > > THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _____________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release August 3, 1994 PRESS BRIEFING BY DEE DEE MYERS The Briefing Room 2:30 P.M. EDT MS. MYERS: We'll keep this brief, in anticipation of the main event tonight at 8:00 p.m. The President, as you know, will open with a statement focused largely on health care. But he'll also touch on the economy, on the success of the economic plan over the course of the last 18 months. And I will remind you again, there were many who said that that plan would never pass, and if it did, it would destroy the economy, expand the recession, destroy jobs. None of that came to pass. He'll touch briefly on the crime bill, which, as you know, we're expecting a vote on sometime perhaps as early as this week -- and I think, again, focus largely on health care; talk about the state of play and the historic opportunity which is now before Congress. Then he will take questions from all of you. [...] Q What is the President doing to prepare for tonight's news conference? And is he having regular practice sessions, staffers posing as earnest reporters and the like? (Laughter.) MS. MYERS: Generally, the President's prep sessions are a bit more informal than that. He has spent some time working on an opening statement, which will be about five minutes in length, and he has spent some time reviewing issues, current issues, making sure he's up to speed, sitting down with his advisors just to go through a variety of foreign and domestic policy issues. And then I think he'll spend a little time probably later today talking through what some of the likely questions are, which we do in advance of the press conferences, generally. Q Is this an effort to begin to try to turn the public perception of the President around? Do you feel he's not getting the credit he deserves? MS. MYERS: Well, I think we're always trying to focus attention on the President's accomplishments; but more importantly, to focus attention on what it is the President's trying to achieve. I think this is an opportunity for the President to talk to the American people about the historic opportunity that's in front of us. For the first time in 60 years, both houses of Congress have very realistic bills that reform health care, that meet the President's bottom line, and that have a chance of passing. I think the President's going to just continue to remind people what's at stake here, that this is a tremendous opportunity and that the American people and the Congress ought not to let it pass. I think that's the primary objective, but certainly I think it's also an opportunity for him to take questions from all of you. And we haven't done it in a while, and I think there's a number of questions on issues, both foreign and domestic, that you all have not had a chance to ask him in a while. But I think the -- the opening statement will focus not entirely, but largely on health care. And I think this is an opportunity to talk about that, and a number of other things. Q Last week on health care, one of the basic messages was that incremental reform without mandates at the same time would be counterproductive, would not work. And you cited several states where that had occurred, and it, in fact, didn't work in terms of getting more people covered. Why is Mitchell's program not exactly what you said wouldn't work -- that is, incremental reforms that don't have a mandate at a separate time, rather than a mandate, a sort of unknown mandate far at the end of the process? MS. MYERS: Well, the Mitchell bill includes in insurance policies that there are a number of market reforms and other things in the Mitchell bill. If those reforms do not achieve 95 percent or above by a date-certain, which is January 1st, 2,000. Then the Congress must take action to reach universal. So there is a built-in insurance policy that says if the number of insured continues to decline, or doesn't increase rapidly enough, there is additional action that will be taken. I think the Senator has used 95 percent sort of as a weigh station in that. But, certainly, there is a remedy at the end to make sure that that doesn't happen, that the number of insured Americans doesn't decline, and that the problem doesn't get worse. Q Does the administration think that in signaling his support in advance for the Mitchell kind of approach that the President makes it harder for Gephardt to get his more stringent bill past the House? MS. MYERS: Well, I think we'll have to let the legislative process work itself out and work itself through over the course of the next couple of weeks here. I think what the President has said is that he would support any bill that meets his bottom line. And that is, universal coverage, cost containment and preservation of choice and quality. It is the President's view that both the Mitchell plan and the Gephardt plan, although they take very different methods, get to that bottom line, and that's the most important thing. Q But isn't it kind of like the BTU tax all over again, when it's going to be hard to get House members to go for a more -- a stronger bill, a more universal coverage bill, when they know that the President might abandon that down the road? MS. MYERS: I think the President has said a couple of things, but -- that nobody has shown him a better way, that a bill has to get to universal; nobody has shown him a better way than shared responsibility. But I think, again, this is something that the Houses will have to work out among themselves. And I think -- I don't want to speak for the Majority Leader, but I think there will be some action in the Senate that will hopefully make this clearer to members of the House between now and the time the House has to vote on this. [...] Q Back to health care. Does the President's endorsement of the Mitchell bill, or does sanctioning of it essentially mean that the definition of universal is now 95 percent? MS. MYERS: The Mitchell bill goes beyond 95 percent. If it doesn't get to 95 percent, as you know, and Congress doesn't take action, then an employer mandate kicks in. If you get beyond 95 percent, but not to universal, there's other remedies. Again, Senator Mitchell said 95 percent is not 100 percent. The President has said the same thing. This bill uses 95 percent as a weigh station on the road to universal. [...] Q Dee Dee, the President wound up doing a health care event after all today. Why was that changed? And have any more been added for later this week? MS. MYERS: Nothing else has been added. I think originally there were some other things on his schedule. He decided to free up some time because he wanted to participate in the event. So he did. The rest of this week with the press conference tonight -- let me pull out the schedule -- Q Does he have a rally on the Hill tomorrow? MS. MYERS: That's Mrs. Clinton, or the Vice President. The Vice President. Thursday is a Cabinet meeting. This is an old schedule. Friday is the economic event that I talked about earlier, sort of the day before the one-year anniversary of the passage of the President's budget. So I think it's a chance for us to look at the accomplishments or at the progress that we've made in the wake of that budget bill. Q What exactly will that event be, the Friday -- MS. MYERS: We're still working on the details. I'll probably have more for you tomorrow. You guys love that. And then on Saturday the only public event is he's going to Detroit. He will greet supporters at the airport which will be open to the press. And the remarks will be open to the pool at the fundraiser. But that's it, and we will not take a press plane, just the pool. [...] MS. MYERS: The health care event? Well, it was something that was always on. The First Lady was always going to -- or it's been scheduled for quite a while. The President, again, decided that he wanted to participate yesterday. Q He decided -- his idea? MS. MYERS: Yes. Q And they were always going to roll these buses up here, and the First Lady was going to have a little rally with him, was that the idea? MS. MYERS: Yes, at one point, I mean, I think it was under discussion whether or not the President would participate for a while. But he decided that he did want to, and he did. [...] END 3:00 P.M. EDT