pd25se95 Statement on House Action To Reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act...

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


[Page 1-iii]
 
Monday, September 25, 1995
 
Volume 31--Number 38
Pages 1569-1667
 
Contents

[[Page 1]]

Weekly Compilation of

Presidential

Documents



[[Page 2]]

  

  

Addresses and Remarks

    California
        Departure from Santa Monica--1664
        Exploratorium in San Francisco--1632
        Fundraiser in Los Angeles--1654
        Fundraiser in San Francisco--1634
    Colorado
        Fundraiser in Denver--1623
        Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged in Denver--1608, 
            1615
        Pueblo Community College in Pueblo--1619
    Florida
        Community in Jacksonville--1589
        Departure from Jacksonville--1592
        Fundraiser in North Miami Beach--1604
        Senior citizens in North Miami Beach--1594, 1600
    Pennsylvania
        Community leaders in Philadelphia--1576
        Fundraiser in Philadelphia--1578
    Radio address--1573
    Senior citizen organizations--1569

Communications to Congress

    Angola, message reporting--1587
    Iran, message reporting--1584
    Transportation Department report on highway safety, message 
        transmitting--1663

Communications to Congress--Continued

    UNITA, message transmitting notice--1588

Communications to Federal Agencies--

    Lebanon, memorandum on travel--1575
    Rwanda and Burundi, memorandum on assistance--1631

Executive Orders

    Amendment to Executive Order No. 12425--1572
    Amendment to Executive Order No. 12958--1589

Interviews With the News Media

    Exchange with reporters in Santa Monica, CA--1664
    Interview with Larry King in Culver City, CA--1640

Letters and Messages

    Children's Television Act of 1990, letter to the Chair of the 
        Federal Communications Commission--1589
    Rosh Hashana, message--1623

Notices

    Continuation of Emergency With Respect to UNITA--1588


          (Continued on the inside of the back cover.)


Editor's Note: The President was in San Diego, CA, on September 22, the 
closing date of this issue. Releases and announcements issued by the 
Office of the Press Secretary but not received in time for inclusion in 
this issue will be printed next week.



              WEEKLY COMPILATION OF
          ------------------------------
              PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS

Published every Monday by the Office of the Federal Register, National 
Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC 20408, the Weekly 
Compilation of Presidential Documents contains statements, messages, and
other Presidential materials released by the White House during the 
preceding week.

The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents is published pursuant to
the authority contained in the Federal Register Act (49 Stat. 500, as 
amended; 44 U.S.C. Ch. 15), under regulations prescribed by the 
Administrative Committee of the Federal Register, approved by the 
President (37 FR 23607; 1 CFR Part 10).

Distribution is made only by the Superintendent of Documents, Government
Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402. The Weekly Compilation of 
Presidential Documents will be furnished by mail to domestic subscribers 
for $80.00 per year ($137.00 for mailing first class) and to foreign
subscribers for $93.75 per year, payable to the Superintendent of 
Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402. The charge 
for a single copy is $3.00 ($3.75 for foreign mailing).

There are no restrictions on the republication of material appearing in 
the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents.





[[Page iii]]

Contents--Continued

Proclamations

    Citizenship Day and Constitution Week--1575
    Gold Star Mother's Day--1662
    National Historically Black Colleges and Universities Week--1663
    National Rehabilitation Week--1572

Statements by The President

    Bosnia, decision to end airstrikes--1622
    Death of Helen McLarty--1583

Statements by The President--Continued

    House action to reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act--1608

Supplementary Materials

    Acts approved by the President--1667
    Checklist of White House press releases--1667
    Digest of other White House announcements--1665
    Nominations submitted to the Senate--1666
  

[[Page 1569]]




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


[Page 1569-1572]
 
Monday, September 25, 1995
 
Volume 31--Number 38
Pages 1569-1667
 
Week Ending Friday, September 22, 1995
 
Remarks to Representatives of Senior Citizens Organizations


September 15, 1995

    Thank you very much. I'm delighted to see all of you. I'm glad to 
see you with your buttons and your--apparently, with your spirits 
intact. That's good. [Laughter]
    As all of you know, we're having this huge debate in Washington 
today about the future of this country. I want to try to put this 
struggle over Medicare and Medicaid into some kind of proper context so 
that you can take it not only to the Members of Congress and to your own 
members but out to the American people at large.
    There is an enormous consensus in our country, with which I agree, 
that we ought to pass a budget this time that will bring our books into 
balance by a date certain. I agree with that. We got into a bad habit, 
this country did, before I showed up here, in the eighties and the early 
nineties, of running a permanent deficit, not to invest, to grow the 
economy, to create jobs, but just because every year we preferred to 
spend more money than we were taking in. And it wasn't good for the 
country. We're on the verge of paying more in interest next year than we 
pay for defense, for example. And every year we keep doing that, we 
spend more and more on interest, and we have less and less to spend on 
everything else.
    But why do we wish to do that? What are the values implicit in that 
choice? We do it because we want to free our children and our 
grandchildren from the burden of unnecessary debt. We do it because we 
don't want to have a country where the Government is taking all the 
money and the money will be free to be borrowed by private businesses to 
create jobs and to grow the economy. We do it because we think morally 
we'll be a stronger country if we don't just borrow money for the sake 
of borrowing it.
    But our objectives will be undermined if we forget about the other 
obligations we have. That's why I've said, you know, we ought to balance 
the budget, but why would we cut education and thereby hurt the economy 
and hurt the future of the very children we're trying to help? Why would 
we undermine our ability to protect the environment and public health 
and thereby erode the very quality of life we say we're strengthening by 
balancing the budget?
    And the same thing is true here. We have historically recognized 
significant obligations to the health care of people who are entitled to 
be taken care of through the Medicare program or, through no fault of 
their own, have to be given some assistance. It's a part of who we are; 
it's a part of what kind of country we are.
    And that's what this fight over Medicare and Medicaid is all about. 
What are our obligations to each other? How are we going to fulfill 
them? This is a compact between the generations, a compact we have 
honored now for three decades. It has made America a stronger, better, 
more humane place. It has made family life more secure not only for 
seniors, not only for Americans with disabilities, but for their family 
members, their hard-working family members who knew that they got a 
little help so that they could all fulfill their responsibilities. These 
are the values I would argue that we want to advance as we try to 
balance the budget. We don't want to undermine them. We want to do this 
in a way that will bring the American people together, not tear the 
American people apart. That is what I am working to do here.
    It is truly ironic that this whole Medicare fight is being played 
out against the background of the trouble that the Trust Fund is in. 
Where did you hear that first? From me, right? And in 1993 and 1994, 
when I said the Medicare Trust Fund is in trouble, we have to do 
something to lengthen its life, we have to do the responsible thing and 
keep

[[Page 1570]]

it strong, and I proposed solutions to keep it strong, some of those who 
are for cutting Medicare $270,000 billion today said that I was raising 
a red herring, that it wasn't really in trouble, and why were we even 
worried about this. How quickly they forget.
    But, thanks to the responsible people in the Congress in the last 2 
years, we extended the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by 3 years. And 
in my balanced budget proposal, we extend the life of the Medicare Trust 
Fund by more than a decade from this day forward, making it in better 
shape than it's been in 9 of the last 15 years. That is what we have 
proposed to do and to do it without imposing new costs on seniors.
    Now, the congressional Republicans have outlined their plan to 
balance the budget, which includes a $270 billion Medicare cut--3 times 
the size of any previous cut--and a $180 billion Medicaid cut. Together 
that's nearly half a trillion dollars taken out of the health care 
system over the next 7 years. I doubt seriously that the health care 
system can afford that. And that, again, affects all of us, not just 
people on Medicare, not just people on Medicaid. Almost half a trillion 
dollars.
    Their plan would increase premiums and other costs for senior 
citizens. It would reduce doctor choice. It would force many doctors to 
stop serving seniors altogether. It threatens to put rural hospitals and 
urban hospitals out of business. Brick by brick, it would dismantle 
Medicare as we know it.
    Now, here's the point. If all this were necessary, really necessary 
to save Medicare, maybe we'd all be willing to do it. But it isn't. And 
that is the point that has been missing from all this public debate, the 
point I tried so hard to make yesterday, the point you know but, I have 
to tell you, most of your fellow Americans, even members of your various 
groups who are on Medicare, do not know: The proposed reductions in the 
congressional or Republican congressional plan in Medicare spending on 
providers do go into the Trust Fund; the proposed increased costs on 
seniors do not go into the Trust Fund, as a matter of law.
    So all this conversation we have heard about saving the Trust Fund--
give them their due, when they're talking about holding back money from 
Part A to the hospitals and the doctors, they're telling the truth; that 
will go into the Trust Fund. But the extra cost to seniors, by law, will 
not go into the Trust Fund. You know it, and I know it, and everyone in 
America should know it. Every nickel that will be taken from the seniors 
will go into the General Fund where it will be used to carry out this 7-
year plan, which includes a very large tax cut. So this is a plan to 
take more from people on Medicare, three-quarters of whom live on less 
than $24,000 a year, and put it into a tax cut, more than half of which 
will go to Americans who plainly don't need it.
    Now that has to be driven home. That is a fact. And it is a fact I 
almost never hear discussed. This is not about saving the Trust Fund. If 
we were really about to see the Trust Fund go broke and there were no 
other options, we would all be saying, ``Let's get in a room and roll up 
our sleeves and figure out what it is we have to do to save the best of 
this program,'' wouldn't we? Every one of us would be; none of you would 
be here raising sand about that. And you'd also want to say to the 
hospitals, ``We want to keep you open,'' to the doctors, ``We want to 
keep you going. We don't want to bankrupt anybody. Let's see how we can 
have a fair plan of shared sacrifice.''
    But by law, the money coming out of the seniors does not go to that 
Trust Fund. And it is a grave disservice to the American people not to 
just tell everybody that, not to say, ``Hey, we'd like to fix the Trust 
Fund, and here's what the providers are going to have to sacrifice.'' 

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