Bill Clinton: “I'm trying to think of all of the things I want to say to you. When I was a boy, I lived on a farm in Arkansas that had…”

“I'm trying to think of all of the things I want to say to you. When I was a boy, I lived on a farm in Arkansas that had sheep and goats and cattle, and I nearly got killed by a ram; so I'm glad that your sheep are well-behaved. I don't have that--I've still got a scar up here that I got when I was 6 years old. Two things happened on the health care reform. Somewhere between $200 and $300 million was spent to advertise to convince the American people we were trying to have the Government take over health care. And the American people basically wound up believing it, so that Congress could get off by just walking away from it. That's essentially what happened. I don't think it was true. On the other hand, the second thing that happened was, I have to take responsibility--not my wife, not anybody else, me, because I've been in this business a long time--for biting off more than we could chew at once. Health care is one-seventh of our economy. It's the number one concern for a lot of people when they get sick. And there is only so much change you can accommodate at one time. I think that I have to take responsibility for making our plan vulnerable to being both distorted but also to failing, and I regret that very much. So what are we going to do now? Because every year, more and more working people don't have health insurance. Every year, more and more people who are self-employed or farmers or people in small businesses can't afford to buy insurance or have to pay more for less coverage. And every year, more and more cost gets either put off onto the Government or onto people that do have good insurance policies. Now, if we cut Medicare and Medicaid and take that money away from hospitals in Montana and Arkansas and other places and New York City, that will put even more pressure on either closing hospitals or raising insurance rates for people that have good insurance. So this is a very complicated thing. My answer to you is twofold. Number one, if it is appropriate, that is, depending on what we do this year, I'll certainly intend to discuss the health care in the context of the campaign in 1996. But, number two, remember I have said to the American people all along Medicare and Medicaid are going up too fast; I agree with the Republican majority in Congress on that. We won't have any money for anything else if we continue to have to spend 10 percent, 11 percent more every year for Medicare and Medicaid. That's the only--look, under my budgets, everything else is virtually flat or declining. On the other hand, you can't just cut it without trying to reform the system. And I believe there are some important medical reforms that can be done this year that would make health care more available and more affordable to people and would reduce some of the disruption that's otherwise going to come if you just have huge cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. So I'm not giving up on getting something done this year. And there are a lot of people in both parties in Congress who are prepared to talk about some step-by-step reforms that would make a difference. Cooperation With Congress [A participant asked why the President had not cooperated with the Republicans after their election victory.]”