Bill Clinton: “I think if you--well, let me just quote to you back what the doctors and the nurses and the hospital folks said in Troy…”

“I think if you--well, let me just quote to you back what the doctors and the nurses and the hospital folks said in Troy, North Carolina, today. We were out there with doctors that have spent their entire life in rural areas. They said unless you're going to cover everybody, you can't have health care reform. In the hospital I saw in Troy today, 50 percent of the people who come into the emergency room are people without health insurance. That cost is either going to be passed onto the rest of the folks in Montgomery County who have insurance or is going to be absorbed by the hospital in ways that undermine their ability to provide health care. We are the only advanced country in the world that doesn't do this. I just refuse to believe we can't figure out how to cover all of our people just like every country we compete with does. So no, that's something that I don't feel we can compromise on, because if we don't do that, we can't stop this explosion in cost. The gentleman mentioned how much Medicare and Medicaid's going up, how much other rates are going up. One of the ways we're going to get health care costs in line with inflation is to provide insurance to everybody, get primary and preventive care out there, and then let people buy it in a competitive marketplace. So you've got to cover everybody to get that done, so I can't compromise on that. Mr. Donovan. Thank you. We're going to go to our first question tonight from Bristol, Connecticut, Mr. President.”