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that our parents could never imagine, probably in ways that most of us 
could never imagine.
    But we have some big challenges at home and abroad. And I will just 
mention them and stop, and you ask yourself: If you're trying to imagine 
the future, what do you think the big challenges are? Now, let me just 
mention what I think they are.
    At home, I think, first of all, the baby boomers have got to retire 
in a way that preserves the dignity of American society for the elderly 
without bankrupting our kids and undermining their ability to raise our 
grandchildren, which means we have to reform Social Security and 
Medicare in a way that keeps them there functioning for people who need 
them to the extent that they're needed and brings our country together, 
but does it

[[Page 1555]]

in a way that does not dramatically undermine the standard of living of 
our children and their ability to raise our grandchildren.
    Secondly, we have to recognize that in an information society we 
have to do a much better job of elementary and secondary education and 
preschool education, and not just for some or most but for all of our 
children. And we have to maximize everything we know about child 
psychology, about support for kids who come from troubled families and 
live in troubled neighborhoods, about the access to technology. But no 
one in the world who really knows anything about it would seriously 
question the proposition that American has the finest system of higher 
education in the world. No one believes that America has the finest 
system of elementary and secondary education in the world for all its 
children. And I think that's a big challenge.
    Number three, I think we have a whole new attitude about the 
environment. We have basically for 30 years done great things as a 
country on the environment since the passage of the Clean Air Act and 
setting up the EPA, and we concluded that if we take these things one at 
a time, we can afford to clean up the environment and keep our economy 
still growing. I think now we have to understand that we cannot maintain 
or sustain our economy unless we make the preservation and even the 
improvement of the environment an integral part of our economic policy.
    In other words, I believe global warming is real. I do not think it 
is an accident that 9 hottest years on record have all occurred in the 
last 11 years. I don't think that's an accident. I don't think it's an 
accident that '97 was the hottest year on record, and every month in '98 
has been hotter than every month in '97. And I think there are at hand 
the means to continue to grow the economy and improve the environment in 
ways that will make sure it's all here a hundred years from now for our 
great grandchildren.
    Let me just mention a couple of other things. I believe that, with 
regard to the economy, I think it's obvious--and around our table I had 
a fascinating conversation talking about the global economy, in 
particular, as you might imagine, Japan and Asia, China, and we talked 
about Russia. We have a lot of challenges in the global economy; we have 
a lot of challenges in the area of world peace, the proliferation of 
weapons of mass destruction, dealing with terrorism, and trying to stop 
people from killing each other because of their ethnic, racial, and 
religious differences.
    There will be plenty to do in the post-cold-war world to create a 
trade-centered, people-centered, peaceful network of national 
cooperation and institutions to help deal with those who won't be part 
of that framework.
    We also have to recognize, I think, that we have an incredible 
opportunity and an obligation here--and those of you from New York, I'd 
say, should feel it especially--to prove that we can bring free 
enterprise to the areas of America which haven't received it yet. There 
are still neighborhoods in New York City that have double-digit 
unemployment rates, largely because of underinvestment and low skill 
levels--not because most people aren't responsible; most people in most 
neighborhoods get up and go to work every day, pay taxes, and try to be 
good citizens. So we're never going to have a better time than the next 
couple of years to try to help.
    And the last thing I'd like to say is I think that this theme, that 
Hillary and I have worked on, of one America means something to me. It 
means one America across all the lines that divide us. It means an 
America in which citizens commit themselves to serve their fellow human 
beings, which is why I'm so proud of our AmeriCorps program, our 
national service program. It also means that we understand that the 
unity we have is a precious gift, and we should manage our differences 
with dignity and decency and always strive for unity over division; 
always put people over politics; always put progress over partisanship. 
That's what I believe.
    And if we do those things, I think we're going to do just great in 
the 21st century. And I'm going to do everything I can for the next 2\1/
2\ years to make sure that that is exactly what we do.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 9:40 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to dinner hosts Bruce and Claude Wasserstein; event

[[Page 1556]]

cochairs Alan and Susan Patricof; Steve Grossman, national chair; 
Leonard Barrack, national finance chair; and Fran Katz, national finance 
director, Democratic National Committee; and fashion designer Ralph 
Lauren. This item was not received in time for publication in the 
appropriate issue.


<DOC>
[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents]
 [frwais.access.gpo.gov]


[Page 1556-1557]
 
Monday, August 10, 1998
 
Volume 34--Number 32
Pages 1553-1589
 
Week Ending Friday, August 7, 1998
 
The President's Radio Address

August 1, 1998

    Good morning. Today Hillary and I are at the fire station in 
Amagansett, Long Island, New York, one of many beautiful communities on 
Long Island, where we're joined today by doctors, nurses, breast cancer 
patients, and public health advocates, to talk about something that 
concerns all Americans: making a Patients' Bill of Rights the law of the 
land.
    I'm also very proud to be joined by Congressman Michael Forbes and 
his family. Congressman Forbes is a Republican who is cosponsoring 
bipartisan legislation to achieve a genuine Patients' Bill of Rights.
    We all know that our health care system is rapidly changing. Since 
1990 the number of Americans in managed care has nearly doubled. Today, 
most Americans, 160 million of us, are in managed care plans. I think 
that, on balance, managed care has been good for America because it's 
made health care more affordable and more accessible for more Americans. 
But sometimes cost cutting can lead to lower standards. That's when the 
bottomline becomes more important than patients' lives. And when 
families have nowhere to turn when their loved ones are harmed by health 
care plans' bad decisions, when there's a denial of specialist care or 
emergency care when they're plainly needed and recommended by 
physicians, when those kinds of things happen, we know we have to take 
action.
    Whether in managed care or traditional care, every single American 
deserves quality care. I'm doing everything I can as President to help 
to meet that challenge. For 9 months I have worked in good faith with 
lawmakers of both parties to pass a strong, enforceable, bipartisan 
Patients' Bill of Rights, a bill that covers individual and group plans, 
a bill that guarantees access to specialists and emergency room care, a 
bill that guarantees doctors are not receiving secret financial 
incentives to limit care, a bill that guarantees a remedy to families 
who have suffered harm because of bad decisions by their health plans. 
And for 9 months the American people have waited.
    Finally, the Republican leadership has proposed a partisan bill that 
does not provide these guarantees. Now they've left town without taking 
action, leaving millions of Americans without the health care 
protections they need. Any bill that doesn't guarantee these protections 
is a Patients' Bill of Rights in name only.
    Today the American Medical Association, the American Nurses 
Association, the National Breast Cancer Coalition, the American College 
of Emergency Room Physicians, the American Small Business Alliance, and 
the National Partnership for Women and Families have all come forward to 
say the plan of the Republican leadership is an empty promise; it simply 
will not protect the American public or ensure the quality health care 
they deserve. Now Congress should rise to its responsibilities and 
guarantee a Patients' Bill of Rights, and they should reject proposals 
that are more loopholed than law.
    Until Congress acts, I will continue to do everything I can to 
ensure that more Americans are protected by a Patients' Bill of Rights. 
In February I signed an executive memorandum that extends those 
protections to 85 million Americans in Federal health plans. Last month 
the Department of Veterans Affairs put in place a new health care 
appeals procedure for 3 million veterans.
    Today we're building on our efforts. I'm pleased to announce that 
the Defense Department is issuing a directive to make the protections of 
the Patients' Bill of Rights real for more than 8 million servicemen and 
women, their families, and Defense Department employees. These men and 
women stand ready every day to keep our Nation safe. They should not 
have to worry about the heath care they or their families receive.
    This action brings us one step closer to a Patients' Bill of Rights 
for all Americans, but Congress must act. And so once again, I ask 
Congress to do its part. There are just a few weeks left in this 
legislative session,

[[Page 1557]]

only a few weeks left to improve health care and strengthen our 
families. Let's put progress ahead of partnership. I ask all Members of 
Congress to join Congressman Forbes, me, and the other Democrats and 
Republicans who want a real Patients' Bill of Rights.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The President spoke at 10:06 a.m. from the Amagansett Fire Station 
in Long Island, NY.


<DOC>
[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents]
 [frwais.access.gpo.gov]


[Page 1557-1559]
 
Monday, August 10, 1998
 
Volume 34--Number 32
Pages 1553-1589
 
Week Ending Friday, August 7, 1998
 
Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Reception in East Hampton

August 1, 1998

    Thank you. This is one clever man. I want you to watch this. You see 
this? He took the watch again. [Laughter] Thank you, Jonathan. Thank 
you, Christopher. I want to thank Andy and Jeff and Elizabeth and all 
the others who were cochairs tonight. I want to thank Sandy Thurman and 
Richard Socarides and Marsha Scott, who've done a lot of great work for 
me and on my behalf with so many of you.
    And I want to thank Brian Rich for serving as a White House 
volunteer. The whole place runs on volunteers, believe it or not, to an 
astonishing extent. I want to thank Steve and Len and all fine people 
here from the DNC, and all of you for being here.
    Last night we were with some people, and a person who's lived here 
for many years said, ``You know, the last sitting President to visit 
Long Island was William McKinley--the eastern end of Long Island--
William McKinley.'' And everybody laughed. They didn't exactly see me as 
a natural successor to William McKinley. We don't think of him in the 
same terms that I'm frequently painted these days.
    But I'll tell you an interesting thing about William McKinley. He 
was the last of a line of either four or five generals, Union generals 
from Ohio, to be elected President between 1868 and 1896, that included 
Ulysses Grant; his successor, Rutherford Hayes; James Garfield, who, 
unfortunately, was assassinated and lived only a few months; Mr. 
McKinley--Mr. Harrison might have been from Ohio; I'm not sure. But the 
point is, if you were a Union general from Ohio, you had about a 50 
percent chance of being elected President between the end of the Civil 
War and 1900.
    Now, what has that got to do with all this today? There's a reason 
they won. They won because Ohio was the heartland of America at the time 
and because they embodied the idea of the Nation for which Abraham 
Lincoln gave his life--that slavery was wrong, that discrimination based 
on race was wrong, and that we needed a strong, united country for 
America and for all Americans to fulfill their God-given capacity.
    Throughout American history, one of our two parties has always been 
essentially the party of the Nation. And even though the Democrats, I 
regret to say, after the Civil War, were just kind of coming to that--
they were the party of immigrants, and that was good, and they stood 
against discrimination against immigrants--but for all kinds of reasons, 
we didn't become the party of the Nation until the election of Woodrow 
Wilson. And then, our fate was sealed when Franklin Roosevelt was 
elected and Harry Truman succeeded him.
    We haven't always been right on every issue in the 20th century, but 
I think it's clear that we have been on the right side of history. And I 
think that's why you're here today. And a lot of you said a lot of very 
kind things to me as I worked my way through the crowd, and I appreciate 
them more than you know. When I ran for President in 1992, I did it 
because I thought our country was divided, that we hadn't taken care of 
the business before us, and we certainly weren't planning for the future 
very well. It seemed to me that we needed to be trying to create an 
America in which there was genuine opportunity for every responsible 
citizen, in which we were continuing to lead the world toward peace and 
freedom and prosperity, and in which we were coming closer together as 
one community.
    Or, if you put it in another way--if you go back and read the 
Declaration of Independence, it basically lays out the things that our 
country has been for all along. We just never perfectly lived up to 
them. We've always been for deepening the meaning of

[[Page 1558]]

freedom. Keep in mind, when all those people said all people are created 
equal, if you weren't a white male property owner, you couldn't even 
vote. But Jefferson said, ``When I think of slavery, I tremble to think 
that God is just.''
    So we set out an ideal, and then we knew we'd have to be working 
toward it for a long time, constantly redefining it, deepening the 
meaning of freedom. We've always tried to widen the circle of 
opportunity, and we have been on a permanent mission, in the Founders' 
words, to ``form a more perfect Union.''
    Now, on all fronts, I believe our party is on the right side of 
history on the edge of this new millennium. Hillary is running this 
great Millennial Project called imagining the past and imagine the 
future--excuse--``honor the past had imagine the future.'' It's been a 
long day. [Laughter] Anyway, the thing I like about it is, I don't think 
you can imagine the future unless you do it in terms of the values and 
the history of the past, and I don't think you can just live in the 
past. So everything I've done the last 6 years I've tried to make 
America, first of all, work again. I've tried to develop a working 
definition of what the role of the Federal Government in our national 
life should be. And I've tried to get out of the old debate about 
Government is the problem, Government is the solution, toward seeing 
Government as an empowering agent to enable the rest of us to live our 
lives, and to create the conditions and give people the tools to do what 
needs to be done.
    And I think that the ideas we brought to the economic and social 
debate, to the foreign policy debate, have contributed measurably to the 
remarkable conditions in our country today. Most of you know that we 
have the lowest unemployment rate in 28 years and the lowest crime rate 
in 25 years and the lowest percentage of people on welfare in 29 years. 
We're about to have the first balanced budget and surplus in 29 years, 
the highest homeownership in history, with the smallest Government in 35 
years.
    But we also have advanced the cause of peace and freedom around the 
world, advanced the cause of interdependence around the world through 
economic cooperation, and advanced the cause of unity at home with 
things like citizen service and the opportunities I've had to work with 
many of you to remind the American people that we're all one country and 

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