Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr11/wh930430.zip/4-30C.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-06-01 | 18KB

From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:[e-mail] Fri Apr 30 17:03:01 1993
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1993 14:26-0400
From: The White House <[e-mail]>
Subject: President and 1St LAdy's Remarks at Reception for HCTF
To: [e-mail]

                           THE WHITE HOUSE

                    Office of the Press Secretary

________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                             April 29, 1993


                       REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
               AND THE FIRST LADY IN RECEPTION FOR THE
                        HEALTH CARE TASK FORCE

                            The South Lawn

6:38 P.M. EDT

         THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  Let me say how
pleased I am that one of the things that even people who care about
health care can't control -- the weather, cooperated with us today.
(Laughter.)  How delighted we are to have you here to just say a
simple thank you for all the work you've done.

         I have a few other things I want to say, but I think I
should begin by introducing the First Lady, by way of saying that 10
years ago we tried this once before when I was governor of our state.
And it was obvious that we needed to dramatically overhaul our
education system and I asked her to chair this committee.  And she
looked at me as if I had lost my mind because we knew we had to make
everybody in the state mad to do what needed to be done.  And it
turned out to be all right.  We had to change a lot of things, but it
was one of those remarkable moments in history when all the people
were ahead of all the policy makers.

         I think we may be there again with health care.  And I
think that if all of this works I will be once again indebted to my
wonderful wife and all of you.  And I just want you to know that she
has sung your praises to the moon from the beginning of this.  And so
I hope that you think that she did as good a job as she thinks you
did, because I think you were both pretty great.  (Applause.)  Thank
you very much.

         MRS. CLINTON:  We are so pleased to have you all here,
but you might have heard the first version of this -- it was going to
be a reception indoors.  And what we found out after we actually got
the names of everyone is that contrary to the press reports, there
are more than 1,000 people who have actually worked over the last
several months in a regular way.  So we had to move this reception
outdoors and could not have asked for a more glorious day to do it.

         This has been an extraordinary experience and still is;
because our work is far from over.  We have very much ahead of us in
terms of hammering out final decisions and presenting those decisions
to the President for him to make final decisions to present to the
Congress and the people of this country.  But I know that a number of
you have to return to your real lives as of the end of this week, and
I didn't want you to get away going back to agencies and to states
and to practices and other work settings without our at least being
able to thank those of you who have given so much, but who have to
leave the permanent effort you've been involved in to become part-
time soldiers on behalf of health care reform.  But, also, to thank
those of you who will continue to work as we finish the task before
us.

         It would have been very difficult for us to make the
progress that we have made without the help of Tipper Gore.  Tipper
has been a tireless worker and campaigner on behalf of the needs of
mental health, particularly as it affects children, but as it affects
everyone.  Because of her work and her commitment, mental health is
now seen as a part of health care reform.  And I want you to join me
in thanking and welcoming Tipper Gore.  (Applause.)

         MRS. GORE:  Thank you.  I want to add my voice to the
First Lady's to really express gratitude and appreciation to each and
every one of you, especially those who worked very hard on the mental
health working group, but everybody.  You have been a part of history
in the making and I think you should think of yourselves as being
modern-day warriors in a peaceful revolution because that's what
health care reform, which was mandated by this election, is all
about.

         It's an historic opportunity to make fundamental change
and to make peoples' lives better and to end discrimination, to bring
a system of rationality and fairness to health care and to the way we
view medicine in this country and taking care of ourselves.  I want
to say I have never seen a First Lady work so hard on any issue, put
in the hours that she has, met and listened to the people and been
the leader of all of us as the most important volunteer who lets us
feel her commitment and her compassion about fellow citizens in our
country.  And that's what health care reform is about.  I'm proud to
be a part of it with you.  I'm proud of what you all have done.
Thank you very much.  (Applause.)

         MRS. CLINTON:  I want to thank especially the cluster
leaders, the people who pulled all of this together on all of the
issue groups that we have worked on.  I want to thank Ira Magaziner
and Judy Feder for their leadership in this extraordinary effort.
(Applause.)

         And as Tipper said, there's been a lot of speculation
about your efforts and our work together.  And I guess there's never
been anything quite like this in Washington, at least on the domestic
front.  Someone said to me the other day that the last thing like it
was the planning for the Normandy invasion, in terms of the numbers
of people involved.

         But it really had been extraordinary.  And I want to say
a special word of appreciation to all the people who were the support
staff for this extraordinary effort -- who found all the papers, who
took all the phone calls, who opened all the letters.  (Applause.)
This would not have been possible without you.

         Because we had hoped that you could have toured the
White House today as part of our thanking you and the numbers would
not permit that, we have arranged for a series of three special tours
of the White House for you.  And we have set aside three dates:  May
12th, May 18th, and May 26th.  If those dates are impossible for any
one of you because you are travelling home and don't expect to be
back, what we want you to do is to make arrangements for these tours
through Marge Tarmey, whom I'm sure all of you know, and organizes
Ira which is the most incredible task, as well as keeping all these
balls in the air as we go forward.  Marge will be helping to sign you
up for these special tours and we are really looking forward to your
being able to enjoy the White House.

         We will also in the next few weeks be sending out
certificates of appreciation to each of you individually as a small
token of the thanks that certainly Tipper and I and the President
feel, and that we believe the American people feel as well.  And, as
I mentioned to some of you, we have refreshments, obviously, on the
lawn.  And as you leave, we have some other kind of souvenirs for
you, particularly those of you with children in your families who
wonder where you've been -- (laughter) -- as you have pulled these
all-nighters and not left the Old Executive Building for days and
days on end.  I cannot tell you how many calls from spouses and
children we have handled.  Are they really still there at 11:00 p.m.
at night?  (Laughter.)  And we've given all of you the blanket okay
that that's where, as far as we knew, you all were.  (Laughter and
applause.)

         None of this obviously would be possible -- none of the
work that you have done, none of the work you are still doing, none
of the work you will continue to do in the weeks and months ahead
without a President who believes with all his heart that health care
reform is the right thing for this country to do, both as a matter of
human decency and dignity, and as an economic imperative.  And he
believes that the time for the changes that many of you have seen and
talked about and worried about is now.

         So, really, the person who made all of this possible and
has really lifted our expectations about what we can achieve together
on behalf of health care, is the President, whom I now present to all
of you, with our appreciation.

         THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  You know, I wish
there were something more I could do for all of you.  I think you
deserve a medal just for putting up with Ira's toll gates.
(Laughter.)  I can't believe Ira's hiding back there.  He's probably
sharpening darts or something.  (Laughter.)

         I want to say a special word of thanks to Tipper Gore
for her involvement and for the work that she's done to personally
sensitize me to a lot of the mental health issues that I think all
Americans need to know more about.

         I want to say, too, that the Vice President is not here
tonight because he is on an errand for our administration in Florida
and could not be here.  But he sat in all those meetings with me,
that we had -- long hours -- trying to make sure that we understood
the implications of every issue and understood all the incredible
work that all of you have done.

         I want to say a special word of thanks to Ira.  Hillary
and I have known Ira a long time.  Ira and I were at Oxford together
back in the late '60s, and we always used to say when Ira walked into
a room he doubled the IQ of whoever was in there, however many people
were in there.  (Laughter.)  I don't know how many of his brain cells
he has departed forever in this endeavor, but -- (laughter) -- I hope
that part of this endeavor will lead some of you encourage him to
take more care of his health.  I don't think he's had any sleep since
this whole thing started.  He's really been a champ, and Hillary and
I are very grateful for his efforts.

         I want to say, too, that there are a lot of people who
said, well -- I mean, I never could believe this -- for years and
years and years we all complained of gridlock and do-nothing and
nothing ever got done.  And the last five days, I see all these
articles complaining that I'm trying to do too much.  (Laughter.)  I
plead guilty to that.  (Applause.)

         But the overwhelming focus of this administration has
been on the economy, jobs, deficit reduction and investment in our
people, and on health care.  That's what we have focused on -- the
things that will lift this country up again and bring this country
together again, and give people some measure of security, even as
they go out in the highly changed and charged world that we're moving
toward.

         I wish I could write a book.  I wish I could even
remember all the incredible stories I heard along this last year and
a half when we were out on the campaign trail related to health care.
         I'll never forget the woman I met in Columbus, Ohio who
had six or seven kids and had to give up a $50,000 a year job because
one of her children was so sick, and the only way she could get any
care was to become Medicaid eligible.

         The farmers that I met along the way who couldn't get
health insurance; or if they did, it took up the whole profit from
the farms in the average year.  The small businessperson I met who
had only four employees and was chagrined because of the exploding
cost of insurance in his small group; he had to go to a $2,500
deductible and how badly he felt for his own employees.  The big
businesses that told me about their inability to compete in a global
economy because they had to spot their competitors so much.  The
doctors that I know who wanted to be good doctors and wanted to reach
out to people who were spending more and more of their time and money
on paperwork and regulation, and on and on and on.

         The human dimension of this issue is utterly enormous.
The economic dimension is also very great.  We're here, struggling to
really be serious about reducing the government's deficit, and under
every scenario we can cut it quite a bit in the next five years, and
then it starts to go right up again because of health care costs.  So
there has rarely been a time in the history of this country when an
economic issue and a social issue, when an issue that affects all the
big people and all the little people and all the people in between
has been so tightly joined, as this health care issue.

         I know there are those who say, well, we shouldn't try
to deal with this; it ought to be enough just to have a fundamental
budget that dramatically changes the priorities of America.  But if
you want to get rid of the deficit and have any money left to invest
in your children and your education, your economy and your future, we
have to do both.

         And so I just want to reaffirm to you that all of your
efforts have not been in vain, and I'm going to do my best to give us
a health care reform package that can pass the Congress this year,
and I'm going to do my best to fight for it, and I hope you will,
too.  (Applause.)

         It may be that we can only do one thing at a time in
this town; that may be.  But I'm not prepared to acknowledge that.
Congress has worked out smaller bills, but they're all different.  I
mean, they've got an agreement on the family and medical leave, and
now they're apparently going to send me the motor voter bill I've
been working on.  And today, they voted for a modified line-item veto
in the House, which I thought was remarkable; the first bill we've
had with real bipartisan support.

         I think we can do more than one thing.  And I think if
people understand that you have to do both of these things -- have a
new budget and a new direction and a new approach to health care to
get control of our deficit and our financial future and to have
something left to invest in our people, our economy and our own
future, I think we can do it.

         And I just have to ask all of you to be committed now to
be agents of change.  You've done all this work on this program.
And, you know, the final thing we come out with, none of you will
agree with all of it.  I won't agree with all of it.  We're going to
do the best we can to put something together that's good for America
and that we can get through the United States Congress.  And we're
going to do our best to continue to reach out to both Democrats and
Republicans as we have throughout this entire process, to try to make
this an American effort, not a Bill Clinton effort, not a Democratic
effort, not a Republican effort, but an American effort.  America
needs this.

         And I'll say this:  You know, when this group began to
get together, I kept reading all this stuff about secrecy.  And, you
know, shoot, I've read more about everything you've done in the press
than anything else I've seen.  (Laughter.)  If you can't keep a
secret in Washington with two people, you sure can't keep a secret
with 1,000.  (Laughter.)

         I think you've been great.  I want to ask you to commit
now to do what you can.  A lot of you don't come from here.  A lot of
you live out in the country where a lot of these problems are being
grappled with.  When you go home, try to mobilize your friends to
tell your members of Congress that the time is now.  The time is now
to deal with this.  And if you do live here and you have even more
contacts on the Hill or with others that can influence this process,
use your time now to pass it.  Don't let all your work have been in
vain.  This is a magic moment in the history of this issue.  People
have been working for decades just to have the circumstances which
exist now.  And I hardly see anybody who doesn't admit that the time
has come to do something, to do something bold and do something
substantial, to do something we can live with from years to come that
will really make our country better off, our people more secure,
healthier and happier.

         We're going to have enough insecurity as it is in
America; and everybody is, with all the changes that are going on in
this world.  The least we can do is to join the mainstream of the
world in taking care of our people better, providing a comprehensive,
affordable, good, quality health care system.  And it's good for the
economy.  If we can get that idea across we can prevail.

         I need your help now to carry the fight to the floors of
the Congress, both chambers and both parties.  And let's lift this
issue up, let's keep it high in America's mind and heart, and let's
make sure that all this work you have done will be rewarded for
generations to come.

         This is a real moment in the history of this country.
We can be a part of it.  Now the time has come to bring it home.

         Thank you very much.

         Q      Mr. President, does this reconvening of the peace
talks take the pressure off you at all, sir?  (Laughter.)

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, let's see what happens there.
Let's see what happens.  Let's see how serious they are.  You know,
they've said things before and not meant it.  If they mean it now, so
much the better.  I'll see.

         Q      How are you going to know if they mean it, sir?

         THE PRESIDENT:  We will know them by their deeds, not
their words.

                                 END6:55 P.M. EDT