___ NOTES FROM LIST.HEALTHPLAN MANAGER ______________________ | | | 1. The following contains only the health-care related | | *excerpts* from the speech. | | 2. When writing to LIST.HEALTHPLAN send new email to | | me ; *don't* write a REPLY to | | mail from the list. Replies don't reach me. | | 3. Use the appropriate command line in the SUBJECT of | | your message header. See the welcome letter for com- | | plete instructions. If you need a copy, send me a note | | with this Subject: SEND WELCOME LETTER LIST.HEALTHPLAN | | -- Steve Freedkin , List Mgr. | |_____________________________________________________________| - THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _____________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release June 27, 1994 REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT DNC GALA RECEPTION Imperial Ballroom Sheraton Hotel, New York City 9:37 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. [...] Thank you, Chairman Wilhelm, for your outstanding leadership and for your extraordinary work on behalf of our candidates around the country. And thank you, Senator Bradley, for being here with us tonight and for your work on this event, and for your steadfast effort to get a health care bill out of the Senate Finance Committee that actually protects the American people's health care. (Applause.) [...] But let me say, everything I have tried to do to empower people to get the economy going, to make government work for ordinary people again -- all of those things are embodied in this struggle to provide health care to all Americans. And it isn't easy. People have been trying to do it for 60 years. Roosevelt wanted to do it; Truman wanted to do it. President Nixon -- President Nixon proposed -- requiring employers and employees to buy health insurance. President Carter tried to do it. I believe we can get it done. And so we worked. We have worked for months and months and months. We worked for nine months and involved thousands and thousands of people to put together a proposal. And then I said, okay, here's my proposal; where's yours? It won't be right for everybody. Surely, there's some things that can be improved about it. I went out and listened to the American people. They said, do a little more for small business and make sure you're going to protect small business, and make it a little less regulatory, and trust the American people to take more voluntary actions at work. But make sure you cover everybody. So we made some changes, and we did that. And there are now bills on the floor of the House and the Senate for the first time ever in the whole history of the republic that would cover all Americans with health care. There never even was a bill on the floor of the Congress before -- ever. (Applause.) And it's there. (Applause.) But the forces of opposition are very strong. We were talking at dinner how the great Italian political theorist Machiavelli said, 500 years ago there was nothing so difficult in all of human affairs than to change the established order of things. Why? Because the people that lose know it, and they fight you like crazy. And the people that are going to win are never quite sure you can deliver the goods. And so they're often not there in the trenches. Today we had over 100 distinguished doctors and medical personnel from all over America, including many from New York City, representing the academic health centers of America. And a brilliant doctor stood up and said, you know, people say they wish to protect what's best about American health care and fix what's wrong, but they're afraid they will mess it up if they try to fix it. He said, you can no longer protect what's best unless you fix what's wrong. Unless we finally join the ranks of all other advanced countries and provide health care to everybody, we're not going to be able to afford to keep our finest medical centers going, training the finest doctors and nurses and medical professionals. He said they run ads against the President's program, saying that if you cover everybody you will ration health care. Tell that to the 39 million Americans that don't have any health care. They are rationed. (Applause.) I say that to make this point -- we can pass health care reform this year, but it's going to require everything that all these other things did -- breaking gridlock, defeating special interests, arguing for a future, and asking people to work toward that future, and making government work for ordinary people -- not to give them anything but to permit them to access a system that will enable people to take care of themselves and their families. [...] But I just want to tell you folks, I met two kids today when I came to New York. Whenever I go to a city, I try to let the Make A Wish Foundation or some other group bring some children to see me who are sick and who have health problems. And one of these children had a condition that may be fatal, but it's been in remission for a couple years --12 year old boy, just graduated at the top of his class in elementary school here in New York City. He may have a good, long, healthy life, but I'm telling you, if his parents lost their jobs, what would he do for health care? And if they tried to get another job, could they get health coverage for a child like that? I met a 17 year-old boy -- Mayor Dinkins, you can be proud of this -- who was wheelchair-bound -- has been all his life. Has a severe muscular disorder from childhood -- very bright young man, computer expert. Wanted to write me on the White House E-mail, and I told him I was too dumb to use it, but I'd read if he sent it. (Laughter.) And he gave me a letter he prepared about obstacles for handicapped children and what his life was going to be like. And he said, you know, this wheelchair of mine cost, I think he said, $15,000. And he said, his parents were immigrants, both of them were immigrants. And he said because my mother works for the city of New York, our family has been able to maintain a middle class lifestyle because our health policy pays for 80 percent of my bills. But it's been hard even for us -- I had expensive surgery; I have this expensive wheelchair -- I'll have to replace it soon. But he said, so many of my young friends are almost destitute who are physically handicapped because of the conditions that exist. And if we were getting a good deal, the rest of us, that would be fine, but your country's spending 40 percent more on health care than any other country in the world. And it is only because we have refused to discipline ourselves to provide health care to everybody, like all our competitors do, that these stories are out there. We can do better. But we have to believe. We have to fight those who say we cannot do it. We can turn this economy around; if we can bring this deficit down, when nobody thought we could do it; if we can break gridlock, we can do this too. I just ask you to look at these people on this stage and remember this -- this is the only thing that really counts: I ran for this job because I wanted to do what I could with the power vested by the framers of our Constitution and the presidency to change the lives of ordinary Americans for the better. There is no other purpose. (Applause.) And anything -- anything that diverts, divides, distracts or destroys the spirit and the purpose of the American people when we have so much on our plate here at home and around the world is not good. And anything that unifies and makes us believe in ourselves and makes us better and gives our children a chance to have a better future is good. That is what we represent. That is why your contributions are well invested tonight. That is why I ask for your help to do everything you can to help us pass health care this year, help us keep reform going, and help the voters reward the forces of change and progress and humanity and unity in the elections this fall. Thank you, and God bless you all. (Applause.) END 9:55 P.M. EDT