THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _____________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release September 22, 1993 PRESS BRIEFING BY DEE DEE MYERS The Briefing Room 3:35 P.M. EDT MS. MYERS: I just thought I'd start by giving you guys a little color on the President's day, and then we'll talk. He started this morning -- Q The color was purple. MS. MYERS: That's right. He went jogging with Senator Daschle this morning, came back to the Oval Office, spent a little time there this morning doing some work, returned to the Residence around 9:00 a.m. Did speech prep from about 9:15 a.m. until 10:45 a.m. in the Family Dining Room. At 10:45 a.m. he came down to the State Dining Room where he had a bipartisan leadership meeting. It was a very good meeting. The President talked briefly about the situation in Russia and his conversation with President Yeltsin yesterday afternoon, and then he thanked the members for all their work on the health care plan and the work of their staffs. He said he hoped that the spirit of bipartisan cooperation would continue throughout the process. At one point he said, "I hope we can reach out and listen to the voices of the people who live with this system and continue to work with them to develop the health care plan as the process goes forward." The Republicans and Democrats there acknowledged that while there are some differences between the two sides, that they share a lot of the same objectives like comprehensive care for everybody, flexibility in the system, responsibility. He came back to the Oval Office after the meeting, about 12:15 p.m., where he met briefly with Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd, who is in town. He did a photo op with the Boys and Girls Club Youth Service Award winners; met with Mack briefly; and then went back to the Residence where he spent the afternoon reading, studying, working on his speech, and resting a little bit. I expect that this afternoon, probably starting around 4:00 p.m., he'll do a little bit more work on the speech, probably practice it a few times in the Family Theater, and then -- Q We'll have a text, right? MS. MYERS: What's that? The key word? I, as you know, throughout this process, have not been particularly optimistic about the fortunes of the text. I remain somewhat pessimistic on this. I don't think we'll have it very early. We're still hopeful that we may have some excerpts for early deadlines for TV broadcasts. We're working on that, but I don't think we'll have a text very early. Q What about a prototype of the card that the President is going to -- MS. MYERS: I don't think we'll have -- that definitely won't be ready in time for broadcast. Q Was the First Lady part of the speech preps meeting in the Family Dining Room this morning? MS. MYERS: She was, she was there this morning, yes. Q Would you know one way or the other about the excerpts? At some cutoff point would you know whether we'd get them or not get them, so we can -- MS. MYERS: Well, generally, the way it works is that the cutoff either comes or goes and we either get them or we don't. I mean, I think everybody is very committed to trying to get them. I'm pretty optimistic that we'll have excerpts sometime before broadcast to give you guys a little time to work with them. But I don't think they'll be ready in the next hour or two. We will have press packets in the next -- probably not for another at least two hours. There's nothing particularly new, so I wouldn't hold out looking for that, as it is a fairly lengthy summary of the plan. There may be some facts, figures, or anecdotal material in there that's useful, but I wouldn't look for any dramatic, new explanations of the plan. Q Do you think that in the speech itself, he'll say something about sin taxes, or do you think that that will be left for the detailed discussion down the road? MS. MYERS: He's not going to talk in great detail about financing. He's not going to go through the numbers; that's not the purpose. The purpose of the speech tonight is to lay out the principles around which this plan was developed, and the principles that will continue to guide this as the process goes through. And I think you've heard us talk a little bit about the six principles: security, simplicity, quality, affordability, choice and responsibility. Primarily, the President wants to reassure people that health reform means that they will never have to worry -- no American will ever have to worry about losing his or her health care because they changed jobs, their child gets sick, they move, or they have some preexisting condition that now can exclude them from coverage. That's the primary objective of the speech, although he'll talk about all six principles and about why this is so important and why he's chosen to take on this very complicated battle. Q Has the President decided in his own mind whether alcohol should be taxed to pay for this plan? MS. MYERS: I think the President has largely made a decision on this. I think, as he made clear, it will certainly include a tobacco tax, and the rest of it I'll leave to him. Q Why not say tonight whether or not he wants to tax alcohol? MS. MYERS: I haven't totally ruled that out. But we'll just have to wait until tonight. I mean, I think he'll say something about it. But, again, I wouldn't look for a specific breakdown. I wouldn't look for a lot of -- there's not a lot of figures in the speech tonight. That is not the purpose. Q Since everybody has gone through many of the things the plan will do, what's the reasoning in not addressing the finance question, since it's the one so many people are asking about? Presumably it's the only one they don't know about, as the President said the other day. MS. MYERS: I don't think that's true. I think the American people want to hear him talk about what the plan hopes to achieve. And that is, again, what he's going to talk about. He's going to talk a lot about the principles. He'll tough briefly, I mean, in sort of a broad way, on financing, because that, of course, is going to be of interest to people. I'm not suggesting that he's not going to talk about it at all. One of the things he wants to talk about is how this plan's going to save money and what it means, and broadly about how it's structured. But he's not going to get into -- this is not going to be a sort of an accounting lesson in health care. Q I don't think anybody expected that in the speech to Congress, but as he said last week, he still had another round of meetings to go before he made the kind of decisions that we're talking about; it wouldn't have to be in the speech. He could make it available, as they often do, in backgrounders. But what is it that that aspect of it is not being addressed more specifically than it has been? MS. MYERS: It will be. It will be. Q When? MS. MYERS: Very soon. Q Is it still your plan to have those details in a rationale book whenever you -- to accompany legislation whenever you send -- MS. MYERS: Oh, I think certainly by the time we have legislation, which the President said today he expects -- doesn't expect to send up to the Hill for at least a couple more weeks. That's what he told the leaders this morning. Q And at that point, you'll have a breakdown? MS. MYERS: I think we'll have very specific information at that point. Q On Monday you had indicated that today would be the day that there would be the release of those details. Are you expecting that might happen? MS. MYERS: I think we're close. Again, I think the President will touch on it briefly, and we'll have those numbers soon. Q Wait a second. What exactly -- Q Who will accompany him to this, besides Mrs. Clinton? MS. MYERS: I don't know if I can say this. Who is going to be accompanying him? Riding up there tonight with him in the motorcade will be Governor Dean and Dr. Koop. Q Will Chelsea go? MS. MYERS: I'm not sure whether -- I don't believe Chelsea's going, but I'm not sure. I'll have to double-check. Q And how about Barry Brazleton? Will he be going, too? MS. MYERS: He's not going in the motorcade, but he'll be there. Q Why is Governor Dean going with him? MS. MYERS: I don't know how that got arranged. As you know, he's somebody who has been a big supporter of Clinton, endorsed him very early on, on the basis of this issue, and someone who has been very involved in this health care process. And he is a doctor. He's an M.D. Q In trumpeting the bipartisanship that he detected in the meeting this morning, is he aware that Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich came out and blasted his plan as creating a monstrous federal bureaucracy and something they couldn't support? MS. MYERS: I think that there are certainly some differences, and some members feel more strongly about that than others. I think generally the spirit has been one of bipartisan cooperation. Senator Dole I think -- and at the meeting, I might point out, Congressman Armey spoke quite eloquently about the shared objectives of this. There is some disagreement on -- (laughter) -- very graceful. Q He likened your plan to the New Coca Cola. MS. MYERS: Obviously we have some disagreements on that. I would emphasize, again, that at meeting this morning. Both Senator Dole and Congress Armey emphasized that there are some shared goals in this plan and they hope we can continue to work together to develop health care reform that will improve the quality of care for Americans and the reliability of care. Q Has the First Lady been participating in any of the speech prep, or was she only with him during the bipartisan meeting? MS. MYERS: No, she did participate in the speech prep session this morning. I don't know what her plans are for this afternoon. She's participated in some of it and not. The President spent a good deal of time working on this himself. Last night sort of a speech prep session with advisors was postponed. The President wanted to spend some time working on it himself. He's very close to a final draft. He feels -- (laughter) -- but not close enough for you all. Q Did she help him write it? MS. MYERS: No. She's participated in some of the group sessions, but he sat down and sort of put pen to paper himself on a number of occasions and has spent a great deal of time thinking about it and is spending most of the afternoon -- Q How long is it? MS. MYERS: I think with applause -- (laughter) -- and ad libs it will go -- I'm not sure, but I've got to believe it will go at least 45 minutes. It could go somewhat longer. As you know, last time it went 55 or 58 minutes for the State of the Union. Q You said he doesn't figure legislation is going to go up to the Hill for another couple of weeks yet. What's the possibility of changes in what -- between now and then and what we're going to hear tonight? MS. MYERS: Well, tonight what he's going to talk about again are the principles, which are not negotiable, the six principles which are not negotiable. I think the details are something that he's willing to discuss. I think both the President and the First Lady, Ira Magaziner and others have all made clear that nobody believes we've come down from the mountain with the tablets and that this plan is carved in stone. There are a lot of people who have been working on this issue for a long time and who have a lot of ideas about it. And we're going to work hard to incorporate those to meet the President's objectives. Q He's going to be doing some detail. I mean, he did principles on the campaign trail. He's doing something new tonight, is he not? Or something at least beyond the principles that he enunciated during the campaign? MS. MYERS: Well, he's talking in some detail about --he has a plan, a fairly detailed plan, as you know and have been briefed on in some detail, about how to achieve these objectives. Now, there is room for changes within the outlines of this plan, no doubt about it. But I think the President's willing to consider a number of different options that meet these objectives; and that is, he wants to make sure that there is security, that everybody is covered, and that they will never lose their care no matter what. That's very important to him. He wants to make sure that this system adds personal responsibility, that puts more responsibility on everybody, both for their own personal care and to participate in a system that provides security and reliability. The system is flexible and allows some flexibility at the state level. Those are things that I think he's -- that throughout this process we've outlined in quite a bit of detail. But there are a lot of people who have other ideas about, and the President's willing to entertain them. Q In addition to the people who you mentioned in the White House, was anybody from outside the White House brought in to help craft this speech for the President to practice in front of? MS. MYERS: No. The primary drafters, in addition to the President, have been -- there have been a number of people who worked on it, but I think Jeremy Rosner and David Dreyer. Q Also, in terms of -- I mean, just practicing -- no speech coach or anything? MS. MYERS: No. Just the usual suspects. Q You said Governor Dean and Surgeon General Koop will be riding in the limo. Anybody else? MS. MYERS: No. Those are the two that are supposed to ride up to the Hill with the President. Q And Mrs. Clinton? MS. MYERS: Mrs. Clinton will be there too, of course. And the Vice President will go ahead in his own motorcade. Q Will it be Dean and Koop on one side or the other of Hillary? MS. MYERS: No, I wouldn't assume that. Q Who is sitting with her? MS. MYERS: Koop will be there. Q Has he talked privately with Moynihan or Kerrey today? MS. MYERS: Dr. Brazleton. Q Has he talked privately to Moynihan or Kerrey today? MS. MYERS: No, he spoke to them yesterday, but not today. I mean, he may have -- I don't know if he sort of had an aside with Senator Moynihan at the breakfast, I didn't see it. But there was no one-on-one meeting. Q Last night on French television -- called a possible counter statement -- on Blair House ridiculous. My question would be, how firm is your position not to go back on what -- MS. MYERS: I think Ambassador Kantor made that fairly clear that we don't intend to reopen Blair House. It was a -- Q There's no possibility for Britain to push back a little bit more -- MS. MYERS: I think, again, Ambassador Kantor has made that very clear. We don't intend to reopen Blair House. Q Gephardt mentioned outside that one thing the President emphasized in the meeting was the need to have some of annual review mechanism is place with this plan once it's established in case adjustments need to be made. Are you talking about some sort of formal mechanism to review? MS. MYERS: I think that's open to discussion. I think what the President said, as he said before, that this is something that we need to -- there are a lot of change included in this plan and there needs to be a way to review it and correct for unintended consequences. But I don't think there's a specific plan at this point on how best to do that. Q Senator Nunn indicated today on the Hill that he was somewhat urked at the White House for doing too little to replace General Shali in NATO and threatened to hold up his confirmation hearings until someone is put into his place in NATO Command. What has been done about that at the White House -- MS. MYERS: We're working on that, obviously, and we expect to have a replacement soon. Q And the timing on this? MS. MYERS: As soon as we can. I mean, we hope to -- Q Given what's happening -- MS. MYERS: -- assuage Senator Nunn's concerns. But this is not -- this is something that we're working on. It's something that obviously we considered it as part of the calculus when General Shali was appointed, and I think the President takes it quite seriously. Q One position or the other is going to be open. MS. MYERS: Not necessarily. No necessarily. Q Has the President contacted any foreign leaders since the photo op with biparts? Did he personally -- MS. MYERS: No. Q talk to anyone else about the situation in Russia? MS. MYERS: No. But he's been kept informed throughout the day of developments in Russia. Q Can you give us an idea how, since when you ran down tick-tock it didn't seem to leave any chance for the President to -- MS. MYERS: Just through contact with his advisers. He's spoken to his national security advisers throughout the day. No formal meetings, no -- Q So somewhere back in the Residence while he was working on the speech he picked up the phone and called the Situation Room or whatever? MS. MYERS: Yes. Throughout the day he's been kept informed. Informally, but he's keeping up to date. Q Events surrounding health care. I noticed that in the morning Friday he has a speech on violence in America. What's going on tomorrow here, and aside from the Nightline? MS. MYERS: Tomorrow here at 2:00 p.m. back out under the tent, there will be a health care event. And then we'll leave here around -- the President leaves about 5:30 p.m. I think you all leave a little earlier, except for the pool. And then, as you know, the town hall goes from 10:00 p.m. to 11:35 p.m., and then the President will tape a segment for Nightline. Then he'll meet with supporters at the TV station, and then we'll spend the night in St. Petersburg. On Friday morning, there's an event in St. Petersburg. The focus is personal security, crime. That's the -- Q Shouldn't he have done that in Miami? MS. MYERS: I think that the problems there and around the country are certainly not limited to one area. Then, he will come back, and I think the press plane gets back here at 3:30 p.m. Those of you who are concerned about the holiday, that should give you plenty of time. Saturday is a down day. Sunday, as you know, we're still working on the details. There will be a health care event in Queens sometime sort of early afternoon, so we'll leave here probably mid-morning. Then he has a couple of receptions followed by the Dinkins fundraiser. Q What time is the Dinkins fundraiser? MS. MYERS: It is at 7:30 p.m. Q Is that open? MS. MYERS: Probably. Q And where is it? MS. MYERS: It's at the Waldorf Astoria. And then on Monday he'll meet in the morning with Secretary General Boutros- Ghali. He'll give the speech at 11:00 a.m. He has a series of bilaterals and receptions throughout the day, and we are scheduled to leave New York at 8:45 p.m. Q Is there anything here tomorrow before the 2:00 p.m.? Q talk shows tomorrow morning on the lawn? Is the President going to work these microphones out here? MS. MYERS: He's not scheduled to, no. But other administration officials will. There will be -- I don't know what the exact number is -- I think over 100 -- does anybody know exactly? Oh, 60 -- 60 radio talk show hosts from around the country who will be doing their broadcasts there from the lawn. Q Mark indicated we could get some names of the bilaterals of the foreign ministers. MS. MYERS: Yes, as soon as they're nailed down, I'll be happy to give them to you. Probably by tomorrow. I think they're pretty close. Q You might expect the President to participate in something like that if he was out here. Is there a reason why he's not? MS. MYERS: He addressed them yesterday, and other members of the administration are going to do the live bit tomorrow. But he talked to them all yesterday. Q Nothing on the schedule before the 2:00 p.m. tomorrow, Dee Dee? MS. MYERS: No. He has a series of meetings and briefings, but no public events. Q What is the 2:00 p.m.? MS. MYERS: It's sort of a rally in support of health care reform. Q Out here? MS. MYERS: Yes. Q Who is invited and how many? MS. MYERS: It's a fairly large crowd, and it includes groups, organizations that worked through the health care reform process, representatives of small businesses and different health organizations, labor unions, all the people who have played a part in this process. And the President will speak. Q Are you bringing back Soul Asylum? MS. MYERS: We can only be so lucky. Q On health care, is it fair to conclude that this one percent or less than one percent surcharge for the companies that -- large companies that opt out of alliances will be included in the plan? MS. MYERS: I think that's a live possibility, but I think I'll wait until we make a formal announcement on that. Q Is the reason that you haven't announced this is the numbers are still not adding up, or what is the reason that this is not being put out today? MS. MYERS: The President is very close to a final decision on this, and we'll have it very soon. Q What is it -- is it that he hasn't decided still? That's the same line? MS. MYERS: We're still working through the final details of this, but I think he's very close and we'll have it soon. Q Is the First Lady going to be testifying both Tuesday and Wednesday on the Hill? MS. MYERS: You know, I don't have her schedule. I will check and let you know on that. Q Dee Dee, is the President concerned that discussion about a corporate assessment or sin taxes or any of these financing details will overshadow the larger message -- MS. MYERS: No, no. Q so he just wants a few days? MS. MYERS: That's not it at all. Q This is not a purposeful effort to not -- MS. MYERS: No, absolutely not. Q follow the track you did on the economic package? MS. MYERS: No. I think that the message of the speech is pretty clear. It's something that people are very concerned about. It's the future of their health and the security of their health Q They also want to know what they have to pay. MS. MYERS: And I think he will address that again in broad terms, and it's something that we'll continue to talk about in specific terms throughout this process. There is a section in there that will address for people what does this mean to them, how is it going to affect the cost of their health care. And I think that he'll be -- it's impossible to be specific, because it varies from case to case. But I think he'll be very direct about this means additional responsibility, it means some costs to health consumers, but it means security, and it means reliability, and it means simplicity. Q Is he going to say if you're the average small businessperson, this is what you're going to pay -- MS. MYERS: No, because there were way too many scenarios. But I think what he's -- Q No specific numbers? MS. MYERS: No specific numbers. I mean, that would be impossible to do in any kind of meaningful way unless you guys wanted a six-hour speech. He's capable of that. (Laughter.) Q Tomorrow morning, who is paying for the radio set- ups out there? Are the talk show hosts being billed, or if not, who is paying for this? MS. MYERS: For the cost of setting up tables? Q Well, and telephones. MS. MYERS: Well, the telephone costs would certainly be paid by the individuals. I think that we've probably picked up the cost of unfolding the folding tables. (Laughter.) But, no, they would pay for that. That would be something just like when we do -- anybody sets up a phone, they have to pay. END 3:58 P.M. EDT #116-09/22