[ONLY THE HEALTH-REFORM SECTION OF THE FOLLOWING IS PROVIDED. -- Steve Freedkin , LIST.HEALTHPLAN Mgr.] THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary (Nashua, New Hampshire) ______________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release March 15, 1994 REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT TO THE EMPLOYEES OF MARKHEM CORPORATION Markhem Corporation Keene, New Hampshire 1:17 P.M. EST THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. [...] The last thing I'd like to talk about briefly is health care -- for a couple of reasons. First of all, I know this company has a good health care package and, therefore, that you all feel secure in your health care. And I honor you for that and I'm glad you do. But you should know that every major company in America like this one that provides good health care to its employees is paying more for that health care than it should because so many Americans don't have any health insurance and when they show up at the hospital at the emergency room, their health care gets absorbed by the hospitals and they pass the cost on to the companies that do have health insurance. That adds to the cost of doing business. It also means that a lot of Americans are at risk of losing their health insurance all the time. So what we're committed to doing this year is to -- preserving the plans that are good, like yours; preserving what works in the American health care system, but fixing the system of finance which has led a lot of people into very difficult circumstances. I just left a town hall meeting in Nashua, where I talked to a woman who lost her health insurance because she had a sick child and because she lost her job, and now nobody will hire her because they don't want to take her son's insurance on because the child is sick. In any other country they would have a broad, big pool in which people like that could be insured, so no company would be unduly burdened by hiring an employee. With people changing jobs seven or eight times in a lifetime, we have to make it possible for all American families to work and to have access to health care. And we can't stop people from moving in the job market just because they had a child or a parent who was sick. And furthermore, it is not right when we are trying to export our products all over the world to punish good companies that provide good health insurance benefits by making them pay more than they should just because some people don't pay anything. So we're going to try to provide health security for all Americans in a way that preserves what is right about our system, but fixes what is wrong. It will be good for the economy, and I can also tell you it'll be very good for this budget deficit, because every year, now the only thing that's really growing in the entire federal budget are health care costs going up and two and three times the rate of inflation for reasons directly related to the fact that we're the only advanced industrial country that doesn't provide health care to everyone. So we have to do that, and I hope you will support that. (Applause.) [...] Thank you very much. (Applause.) END 1:30 P.M. EST