THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary (Miami, Florida) _________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release March 20, 1994 REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON ARRIVAL Miami International Airport Miami, Florida [NON-HEALTH COMMENTS OMITTED -- LIST.HEALTHPLAN] [...] * * * * * THE PRESIDENT: (in progress) -- have a system of comprehensive benefits, leave Medicare alone -- it works -- but add prescription drugs, and phase in over time options other than nursing homes for long-term care, and cover people who work through the work place. Nine out of 10 people who have private insurance are already covered through the work place. This is a very, very big deal. And it is imperative if we're ever going to do what we ought to do to give security to the American people. We've got to reform the insurance system. You can't have in any given time 39 million people without health insurance. You can't have 113 million -- 30 million Americans with lifetime limits on their policies. You can't have 81 million Americans with preexisting conditions so that they can't change jobs or they're paying insurance premiums that are too high. You can't have rates that discriminate against older Americans when older Americans are the fastest growing group of our population, and more and more of them want to work. So these are all things that have to be dealt with. And I think that the Congress is going to face up to their responsibilities this year. We've got the economy turned around. We're going in the right direction with the economy. We're going to have welfare reform -- (inaudible) -- got some very important school reforms going. But we have to face the obligation to deal with health care reform. [...]