Bill Clinton: “It's a mistake. Let me just say this. Just look at the--you know, of course, the main Medicaid benefit to seniors is…”

“It's a mistake. Let me just say this. Just look at the--you know, of course, the main Medicaid benefit to seniors is nursing home care. And you know, most States have more people in nursing homes under Medicaid than Medicare, way more. But let's just talk about the next generation. Let's talk about the children. We've all got a big stake in seeing how well they do. Medicaid is the program that provides health insurance to really poor children in this country. Now, you tell me what's going to happen if you block-grant Medicaid and you don't require the States to come up with their portion. And the next time the State legislature meets in Florida--let's take Florida, a State I know quite a bit about. You know, Hillary and I have--her family live there, two of her brothers. Let's just take Florida. And it's a fast-growing State. And they come in and we have a legislature, and the people say, we don't have enough money for the schools. And they're telling the truth, because it's fast-growing. And then they say, we've got all these new communities, and we don't have enough money for the water systems we need or the sewer systems we need. And they'll be telling the truth. Or we don't have enough money for the road systems we need. And they'll be telling the truth. Now, then let's say the seniors have a strong enough lobby to come in and save the money for the nursing homes. What happens? They'll cut off all the aid to the poor children. And then what happens if you take the health care away from the poor children? Then all of us will be paying for them when they're either really sick or they don't develop mentally and physically as they should 5, 10, 15 years down the road. This is not a good idea. This is a bad idea. Not all change is good. We've got to have the right kind of change. And you're absolutely right. And I hope you will fight for it. And I will fight for it. And we just need to tell the American people about it. We can prevail. Thank you. You guys have been great.”