Bill Clinton: “I can't answer the question you just asked me. But I'll get an answer, and I'll get back to this lady who wrote you the…”

“I can't answer the question you just asked me. But I'll get an answer, and I'll get back to this lady who wrote you the letter--or to me--the letter. I'll do it. Let me just say before we close, and then I want to say hello to all of you and then go back around and see the kids who have been waiting so patiently, if they're still there. I don't know if they are. I hear some people chanting in the background. When the new year comes and the Congress comes back into session, there will be a few months of really intense debate on this. Just think about this town and the size of this town and the diversity of the things we've heard about already today, as well as all the things we haven't heard about. This is a very complicated matter. But in the end it comes down to something very simple. We are spending a much bigger percentage of our income on health care than any other country in the world, and yet we are the only major country who doesn't provide everybody health care coverage that is always there, that can never be taken away. And we have permitted a system to develop so that now, coming out of medical school, only about one in seven doctors are committed to do what this doctor has done and this doctor wishes to do. So we have to change that. And it is perfectly clear that it will not happen unless the Congress is prepared to go through the incredibly rigorous process of reviewing the bill that I presented, listening to anybody else's alternatives and hearing the human voices that we have heard today, and coming to grips with this problem and actually acting on it. This is something we should have done a generation ago when we could have saved untold billions of dollars and no telling how many lives. But we can do it now, and we have to do it. And I would just implore you to work with us, make sure we don't make any mistakes we can possibly avoid, but give the Members of Congress from your State the courage to face this problem that our Nation has neglected for too long. Thank you very much.”