pd08au94 Remarks to Health Security Express Participants...

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today.
    As you know, I just returned from Germany where I saw the flags of 
the Berlin Brigade cased because they're coming home, having won the 
cold war. And I met with hundreds and hundreds of our armed services 
families. All of them have health care in the military. And do you know, 
the only thing they wanted to talk to me about was health care. ``Mr. 
President,'' they said, ``when we come home to serve our country out of 
uniform, we want to know that our children are going to be covered by 
medical insurance. I hope you can pass health care this year.''
    It would be different, my fellow Americans, if we didn't have 
personal experience. Look at the State of Hawaii. In Hawaii, everything 
is more expensive than it is here on the American mainland, except one 
thing: health care, because for 20 years in Hawaii, employers and 
employees have been required to purchase health insurance so that 
everybody is covered. And guess what? Small business insurance premiums 
are 30 percent lower, $400 a year lower for small business people in 
Hawaii than they are in the United States on the average. We know this 
works; why are we running away from it? Why don't we run toward it and 
embrace it and take care of people like that fine young woman that spoke 
to you here today?
    And what happens when we try these half measures? Insurance rates go 
up, and coverages goes down. Do you know that one of the things I just 
wish--it's not much I wish for from those who shout and scream, instead 
of talk and listen and exchange, but I do wish they had some burden to 
prove that what they're for works.
    This is the only country in the world with an advanced economy where 
we're going backward in health care. Ten years ago, 88 percent of our 
people were covered. Today, 83 percent of our people are covered. Five 
years ago there were 5 million Americans who had health insurance then 
who don't have it today. Five million Americans have lost their health 
insurance for good, just in the last 5 years, and over 80 percent of 
them are middle class working people. This is a

[[Page 1591]]

broken system, and we ought to fix it without delay.
    Folks, 60 years ago this fight started. Fifty years ago Truman tried 
it three times and failed. Twenty-nine years ago, halfway between the 
beginning and now, President Johnson came to this city to sign Medicare 
into law and to give Harry and Bess Truman Medicare cards one and two. 
I'll bet there are a lot of people in this audience whose parents have 
been helped by Medicare. I bet there are a lot of people in this 
audience whose family budgets would have been severely strained if it 
hadn't been for Medicare.
    If you have ever dealt with Medicare, you know that it's the 
furthest thing in the world from socialized medicine. Senior citizens 
pick their doctors, and the doctors make the decision. And yet, the 
arguments we're hearing today against this plan are the same arguments 
the same crowd made against Medicare 29 years ago, just like they did 
against Harry Truman 50 years ago and FDR 60 years ago.
    Let's do better. Let's finish Harry Truman's fight. We're halfway 
home, and we can go all the way. And let me say this. I want to be as 
good as my word to say we should talk about people, not slogans. In this 
beloved State of yours there are 700,000 Missourians without health 
care. There are 175,000 children without health care. But there are 
millions who could lose their health care. They're an injury, a 
sickness, a job loss, a job change away from losing it. I believe we can 
do better.
    I was raised in a home with a mother who was widowed when I was 
born, who left me with my grandparents to learn to be a nurse. I grew up 
around hospitals. And I buried my mother earlier this year, after a long 
and brave battle with cancer for which, thank God, she received 
magnificent care because she had health insurance. How can we in good 
conscience say, when we know every other country's done it, when we know 
Hawaii has done it and saved money doing it and made people more 
healthy, how can we say America is not up to it? How can we give in to 
those who would play to our fear and our fears of the future instead of 
going forward? Harry Truman would say the buck stops here, the buck 
stops in Congress and the buck stops with you. Let's push it over the 
finish line this year.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 1:40 p.m. outside the Truman Courthouse in 
Independence Square. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. Mel Carnahan of 
Missouri and Health Security Express riders Susan and Rachel Crowthers.


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[Page 1591-1592]
 
Monday, August 8, 1994
 
Volume 30--Number 31
Pages 1581-1636
 
Week Ending Friday, August 5, 1994
 
Remarks Upon Arrival in Cleveland, Ohio

July 30, 1994

    Well, first, let me thank all of you for coming out to see Hillary 
and me. We are delighted to be back in Ohio and glad to be back in 
Cleveland. And I know I started the baseball season here, so I know 
you're all really thrilled at how well the Indians are doing. And I--
[inaudible]--hope there won't be a strike.

[At this point, the President's microphone failed.]

    Is it working now?
    Let me just say a--[inaudible]. It keeps dying. Can you hear it now? 
All right, we'll try again.
    As you know, I'm here on behalf of Joel Hyatt's campaign. I'm proud 
to be here helping him. I also want to say how delighted I am to be here 
with Congressmen Louis Stokes, Sherrod Brown, and Eric Fingerhut. And I 
want to make just a couple of points.
    When I came here seeking the Presidency, and Ohio gave me the votes 
first to be nominated and then to be elected, I knew that this was a 
State which was really the heartland of America, where people were more 
or less evenly divided by party but where everybody wanted this country 
to work again for ordinary Americans. And I made some commitments to 
you, that I'd work on restoring the economy, bringing the American 
people together instead of dividing us, making the Government work for 
ordinary people again, and strengthening our communities and our 
families at the grassroots.
    And let me just say that if you look at what has happened, we have 
worked very hard, often against bitter, bitter opposition, to make this 
country work. We adopted a plan

[[Page 1592]]

to reduce the deficit, after the other party had the White House for 12 
years and quadrupled the debt, without a single solitary vote from the 
other side. We passed the biggest deficit reduction plan in history, 
reduced spending by $255 billion, gave tax cuts to 500,000 working 
families in the State of Ohio alone, asked 47,000 who can afford it to 
pay higher taxes to pay the debt down.
    Now, what has happened? We, the Democrats alone, without any help 
unfortunately from Congress from the other party, have reduced the 
Federal Government to its lowest size since Kennedy was President. We 
have taken $700 billion off the national debt that would have been there 
before we came in and passed our economic plan. And what has been the 
result: 3.8 million new jobs, a 1.5-percent drop in the unemployment 
rate, the largest number of new businesses in any year since the end of 
World War II. This plan is working, and we need to keep Sherrod and Eric 
and Lou in the Congress and elect Joel Hyatt to keep America's economy 
going.
    The other party, they always talked about how tough they were on 
crime. But for 6 years, under two administrations, there was no crime 
bill. Last week, the Members of the Senate and the House voted to put on 
the floor of this Congress this week the toughest anticrime bill in the 
history of the United States. So those are two reasons that I ran for 
President on--restoring the economy, helping to deal with crime.
    I just want to say one last thing. This last week was a great week 
for America. The King of Jordan and the Prime Minister of Israel came to 
Washington to end their war and to pledge to work for peace. And we've 
been working hard on that. Peace for our children--[inaudible].
    After working hard on it for a year and a half, the President of 
Russia called me and told me that Russian troops would get out of 
Central and Eastern Europe for the first time since World War II, making 
the world more peaceful for these children here.
    But I'm telling you, what we owe these kids is not just peace in the 
world but peace on our streets and peace of mind. That means we need to 
pass the crime bill. We need to provide health care for all Americans, 
and we need to do it now.
    Let me say to you, I went to Washington hoping against hope and 
against all the evidence that I could work with people of both parties 
to make this country a better place. And I have done everything I could 
to overcome the kind of inertia and opposition we have faced. And I just 
want you to know, if you like the fact that the American economy's 
recovering, if you like the fact that we're going to finally do 
something serious about crime, if you like the fact that after years we 
voted family leave, we voted for the Brady bill, we voted to make the 
American people safer, then you ought to keep these people in Congress 
and send Joel Hyatt to the Senate so we can do things, not stop things. 
This is a country that's can-do. And we're going to do if you put people 
in the Congress who believe in making America a better place.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 7:11 p.m. at Cleveland-Hopkins 
International Airport. A tape was not available for verification of the 
content of these remarks.


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[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents]
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[Page 1592-1597]
 
Monday, August 8, 1994
 
Volume 30--Number 31
Pages 1581-1636
 
Week Ending Friday, August 5, 1994
 
Remarks at a Reception for Joel Hyatt in Mayfield Heights, Ohio

July 30, 1994

    I'm delighted to be here with Joel and Susan and their two fine 
sons, who spoke so well and really said it all, and with Joel's mother, 
who must be so proud of him.
    You know, if it hadn't been for my mother, I would never have been 
elected President, because there were plenty of elections I ran in where 
she and I were the only two people who thought I had a chance to win. 
[Laughter] Unfortunately, a time or two they were right, and we were 
wrong. [Laughter] But we just kept on going.
    I'm delighted to be here with Senator and Mrs. Metzenbaum, and with 
all of you. I want to say a special word of thanks to attorney general 
Lee Fisher for his leadership on the fight against crime and for his 
leadership on behalf of the Clinton-Gore ticket. I also want to say a 
special word of thanks to the three Members of Congress that Joel 
mentioned, Tom Sawyer, Sherrod Brown, and Eric Fingerhut, without whom 
our economic program would not have passed and this

[[Page 1593]]

country's economic direction would not have turned around. And I thank 
them so much.
    You know, it's funny, I came to the Cleveland Airport--we're a 
little late because there were 500 people there when I landed, so I went 
around and shook hands with them--and I thought, what great passionate 
public issue will they be concerned about. I thought I knew America well 
enough, and sure enough, the first 15 people I shook hands with said, 
``Can't you do anything about the baseball strike?'' [Laughter]
    You know, as a lifelong fanatic baseball fan, I threw out the first 
pitch here. And I saw the Indians come out of nowhere, and they're doing 
so well. And in the other part of the State, by the way, the Cincinnati 
Reds are not doing bad, either. So for Ohio, perhaps more than any other 
place in America this year, we're really all happy that we're having the 
best baseball season in 4 years, and we hope we get a chance to see if 
those records can be broken and all that progress can be made.
    But you know, I want to make a point about that. A couple of years 
ago, David Letterman had a funny top ten list called, ``Suggested 
Slogans of the 1992 Democratic Convention.'' And one of his allegedly 
funny slogans was, ``We're the Cleveland Indians of politics.'' 
[Laughter] Well, we got the last laugh, and now Cleveland might get the 
last laugh, as well.
    I want to say a special word of thanks, too, to Senator Metzenbaum. 
Al Hunt, in the Wall Street Journal, who is sometimes acerbic, said the 
other day, and I quote, ``Senator Metzenbaum is a persistent pain in the 
neck.'' [Laughter] Now, wait, wait, he said, ``As a result, thousands of 
little kids are likely to have a better life.'' That was an article 
about Senator Metzenbaum's adoption bill, a bill that I feel very 
strongly about, one of the few things that anybody in Congress has done 
besides given a speech to try to give more little kids a chance at a 
good life. And I really respect it. And I have told people who disagree 
with us on the issue of choice that if they're really concerned about 
that issue, they ought to go see Howard Metzenbaum and saddle up and 
pass his bill in the Congress, so that we can offer real and meaningful 
adoption to more of our poor children in this country. I thank him for 
that, and I know you do, too.
    Senator Biden pointed out last week at a big ceremony at the Justice 
Department, with hundreds and hundreds of police officers from all over 
the country, as we were celebrating the fact the Senate and the House 
had agreed to put this crime bill Joel talked about on the floor of the 
Congress next week, that the final negotiations were snagged in the 
early hours of the morning and that one man saved the entire bill by 
being willing to work out a last-minute compromise. And he said, that 
man was Howard Metzenbaum.
    The thing I like about him is that he is always fighting. He doesn't 
always win, but he always fights. And what we need in this country is 
not people who are always trying to win, or at least look like they're 
winning, but people who are willing to fight.
    I first knew about old Joel Hyatt back in Yale law school when he 
had already begun a program for undergraduates to teach inner-city kids. 
It's still going on. It's kind of like Hyatt Legal Services; it's going 
to live behind him. Even after he goes to the Senate, I'm sure it will 
go on. And then when he and Susan started Hyatt Legal Services I thought 
it was a good idea, which made me sort of an iconoclast among lawyers. 
But it seemed to me that ordinary people ought to be able to go see a 
lawyer and get something fairly straightforward done without having to 
take the shirt off their back or be scared to death.
    And he did that. And I think that's important, because it's not just 
a mechanical service. It makes people think that the system can work for 
them. And believe me, if we could just make more than half the American 
people believe that this whole country could work for them again, we 
would do a very great deal indeed. And that's what Joel did with Legal 
Services. That's what he can help to do with the United States when you 
send him to the Senate.
    Hillary and I have had a wonderful day today. We went to 
Independence, Missouri, to Harry Truman's hometown. And we celebrated 
there the final leg of the effort to get national health reform and 
guaranteed health insurance for all Americans. We went there for a 
couple of reasons. First of all, Harry

[[Page 1594]]

Truman tried three times, in 1945, 1947, and 1949, to get guaranteed 
health coverage for all Americans.
    And it's very interesting, all the people that were out there 
holding their signs and demonstrating against us today, they all think 
Harry Truman ought to be on Mt. Rushmore. [Laughter] But I come from a 
family who was for him when he was alive. And I know that they're the 
same folks that tried to kill all of his reform programs back then.
    At the end of the Second World War, Harry Truman was at 80 percent 
in the public opinion polls. By the time he sent the health care reform 
to Congress for the second time, he had been driven down to 36 percent 
and was going lower because of all the hatred and venom and 
misinformation put out about him and his program. They said, ``This is 
socialized Government, socialized medicine, big Government run amok.'' 
Do you know what it was? He was asking for private health insurance for 
all Americans.

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