[The following are health-care related excerpts from the daily news briefing of White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers. -- Steve Freedkin , LIST.HEALTHPLAN Manager] THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _____________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release February 10, 1994 PRESS BRIEFING BY DEE DEE MYERS The Briefing Room 1:23 P.M. EST MS. MYERS: We have no announcements, so if anybody has questions -- [...] Q: On health care, is Clinton doing two separate trips next week on health care? MS. MYERS: That's bring up travel for next week. No, he's doing one. And I think we had talked a little bit this morning, and I think that -- the schedule is in flux, so let me just give you some tentative information for next week. He will go to Arkansas over the weekend, and we don't have the final details about that. As soon as we have them this afternoon, we will let you know. Saturday, he will do the radio address -- unclear where he'll do it from. Sunday, sometime on Sunday he'll return here. On Monday he meets with the President of Kazakhstan, Nazarbayev. On Tuesday, we will probably travel. It is unclear where we will go or what the topic will be at this point. (Laughter.) It's open. Q: That's helpful. MS. MYERS: Yes, that's very helpful. On Wednesday, we'll go to Edison, New Jersey, for a health care event. On Thursday, we'll have -- the President will have a lunch here at the White House with senior citizens. And on Friday, it's still unclear -- we expect he'll spend next weekend here. Q: That's a three-day weekend, isn't it? [...] Q: The President shortly will announce some appointments to the Commission on Entitlement Reform, and among the appointees are people who have advocated deep cuts in Social Security benefits, Medicare benefits and so on. Is it fair to say, as a result, the President is appointing a commission that will seriously consider deep cuts in Social Security and other entitlement programs? MS. MYERS: I think that -- I guess a couple of months ago, the President signed an executive order essentially creating the commission. It's 32 members. The chairman is Senator Kerrey. The vice chairman is Senator Danforth. The President appoints 10 members and then the House and Senate majority and minority leaders each get five. So what we are announcing today are the President's 10 in addition to Senators Kerrey and Danforth. Q: Which are the President's 10? MS. MYERS: Well, that's what we are going to announce at whatever time -- 2:15 p.m. Now, in answer to the first part of your question --what the President agreed to do in signing the executive order was put together a commission to look at both different kinds of tax proposals, as well as entitlement reform with an eye toward continuing to bring down the federal deficit. I don't think that he has committed himself to accepting or not accepting any of the specific recommendations of the commission, although I think this is evidence of a very serious effort on our part to continue to reduce the deficit. Q: What do you mean tax proposals? MS. MYERS: That was what was in the executive order. And I don't think they spelled out what that meant. Q: In reporting the story, is it fair to say they are seriously considering tax proposals, whatever that means, and serious cuts -- MS. MYERS: The commission is going to look at everything. I don't think they've ruled anything in or out. So I think it's premature to start saying that they are going to recommend anything in particular, although I think they are going to take a very comprehensive view at all the different ways. You know, there are only really two ways to bring down the deficit -- increase revenue or cut spending. So that's what their mission is, and that's what they'll do. And they're -- the deadline for them to report back, I think, is May of this year. Q: You said the commission hasn't ruled out anything in or out. But what about what the President ruled out during the campaign? He ruled out very specific cuts in Social Security COLAs in Florida. MS. MYERS: Yes, I don't think that's changed. But, you know, there certainly will be -- cuts in Medicare and Medicaid are included now in the President's health care plan. Right, that hasn't changed. That hasn't changed. But I think that -- the reporting date is May 1, 1994. The President, I think, wants them to take a comprehensive look and to come up with some solutions which we'll look at when they report back. Q: Will he be bound by what the commission recommends or can he just ignore it and do something else? MS. MYERS: No, he won't be bound by it. Ultimately, the authority rests with him. Q: So what happens? The commission reports -- MS. MYERS: Yes. Q: He could just say, I don't agree, or he could say, no, I'm going to take another view, or what's going to happen next? MS. MYERS: We'll see when they report. I think we'll take a serious look at what they recommend and proceed from there. Q: But you're saying -- are you saying he will act on one of those two alternatives anyway? MS. MYERS: No. Q: You are not even going that far? MS. MYERS: No, I'm not going to commit him to any kind of action on a proposal that we haven't seen yet. Certainly, we're going to continue to do everything we can to bring the deficit down. Q: But as you said, there's only two ways to do that. MS. MYERS: I guess there's a third way which is to increase economic growth, which we've also worked on this year with great success. Q: He could have put these members together on the commission last year and now they only have basically three months in which to work. There's been some time lag in his appointments. What took him so long to pick 10 people? MS. MYERS: I think we've had a number of things to do. I think we've gotten the commission appointed in good time. They'll have plenty of time to consider a number of alternatives and certainly the chairman and the vice chairman of the commission, Senators Danforth and Kerrey, have considered a number of options in the interim. So I don't think there's any shortage of ideas out there. [...] Q: Did the White House yesterday asked the key congressional committees on health care reform to speed up the legislative process -- Q: What? MS. MYERS: The question was, did the President ask key committee members from the House and Senate health care committees to speed up legislation on health care -- is that right? The answer is, no. The President has met a number of times with House and Senate leaders on health care. He'll continue to consult and work with them. They certainly -- he has discussed with the House and Senate leadership over the course of the last several months specific strategy and timing, but certainly it is up to the chairmen to determine exactly what the timing of their bill is. The President has made it clear, however, that he would like to see health reform passed before Congress adjourns this year. And I think the Congress is working very actively to try to do that. But he did not ask them to speed it up. Q: -- accelerate it if he has welfare reform on the agenda as well -- MS. MYERS: It's because it's up to -- the President's health care proposal is now in the congressional committees. It is up to the chairmen to determine what is the best schedule for moving those proposals forward and getting a comprehensive agreement by the end of the year. It's certainly something that the White House is willing to work with Congress on. But is in the committees now and the chairmen are the best judges as to how to move it through. Q: Did they actually discuss that schedule yesterday, leaving aside whether the President asked them to change it? MS. MYERS: They discussed some issues as to timing, yes. Q: What was he told? What assurances was he given? MS. MYERS: Well, I'm not going to talk about specifics, other than to say that I think the President reaffirmed that he -- I mean, I think everybody is committed to trying to get health care done this year. And so the discussion was about how best to do that. Q: Was he told that might not be possible? MS. MYERS: I think that the members of Congress believe it is possible and are going to work very hard to get it done this year. Q: But nobody told him it wasn't? MS. MYERS: No. Q: It's not a minority opinion on that? MS. MYERS: No. Q: Also on health care, in the wake of this infamous CBO report there have been reports that the White House is reconsidering the bottom- line cost of this package, either benefits offered or phasing in. Can you confirm that? MS. MYERS: The White House is reconsidering the cost of health care? Q: Of the Health Care Security Act, yes. MS. MYERS: Well, again, that's something that's being looked at in Congress, as the proposal -- I think one of the -- one of the things that CBO confirmed was that the basic structure of the Clinton plan is very sound and that it confirmed that over the long-term that we can extend health -- guaranteed private insurance to everybody and still reduce overall health spending, which was good news. The exact cost of the proposal will determine how exactly it's structured when it comes out of Congress. So there is not an effort here to retabulate the Clinton bill as it went up to the Hill. Q: Not to retabulate it, but to perhaps take out some of the more expensive benefits -- MS. MYERS: That's again something that's being worked out in Congress. I mean, as the bill moves through and the specific details of it are worked out by the committees, I think the cost estimates will shift somewhat. Q: You're not doing anything proactive? You're not offering -- MS. MYERS: No. Q: -- smaller benefit among the basic -- MS. MYERS: No, again, it's in the committees. They're working on the details of it. I don't think they're there yet. Q: Did the White House have any role in getting the statements from the American Federation of Teachers for health care reform to issue statements negative really about Cooper's bill yesterday? MS. MYERS: Not that I know of. I'll take the question and double- check it, but I don't -- not that I know of. Q: Did they coordinate it or were they informed in advance? MS. MYERS: We do have sort of contact with a lot of groups, but I don't know that we specifically had a conversation about that. I mean, it hasn't been our position to take on any particular bill other than to compare the specifics of our bill versus the specifics of their bill. Q: Does the White House feel that you've lost the public relations battle on health care? MS. MYERS: No, I -- Q: -- because of the war chest that the others have? MS. MYERS: I think that we believe that this is a long process, one that is going to take most of the legislative year; that there are certainly going to be ups and downs in that process, but that in the long run we will get a comprehensive health care reform package that guarantees private insurance for every American. And that's the bottom line. Thank you. Q: Senator Mitchell just said this morning that he hoped to bring this bill -- get this bill finished by mid-summer and then get it to conference before they go out? MS. MYERS: That would certainly be acceptable to us. THE PRESS: Thank you. END 2:00 P.M. EST