Bill Clinton: “No, I don't think it does. I think what it calls into question is whether we've done everything we can to invest the…”

“No, I don't think it does. I think what it calls into question is whether we've done everything we can to invest the kind of money in avoiding errors that other big complex systems have. I mentioned aviation, but I might also point out workplace safety. We have a representative from General Motors here who talked about how dramatically they have reduced injury in the workplace. Or if I could use an analogy that I think is, in some ways, even more appropriate, in the 1980's, when the American manufacturing sector was under withering competition from overseas and burdened by our big debt and high interest rates, they underwent the most disciplined imaginable review of every single process in every complex manufacturing operation to go to a zero-error rate. If you look at the medical profession, if you look at the way hospitals work, if you think--Dick said tens of millions of people--I'm sure there are hundreds of millions of hospital visits every year--just to take hospitals. There are many people who are older who are taking multiple medications, who go to multiple doctors, so that what happens is, you've got a very complex set of processes that, as we have gotten to live longer, have become more complex and even more interactions. And what we need to do is to take--step back and take a critical look at each and every step along the way. There have been big changes in the roles that various people in the health care system play. Have they all been properly trained to play that role? Do they all check with each other? Are there the right kind of teams in place in every health care setting that work for safety? These are the kinds of questions that we have invested more money and time and research in, in the workplace and when we fly on airplanes, than we have in the health care arena. And we just have to do that now. The good news about this is, this is something we can do something about. But if you ask me, does it mean we don't have the best health care system in the world, I would say, no, it doesn't mean that. Keep in mind, the life expectancy now is, what, over 76 years; anybody who lives to be 65 in America has a life expectancy in excess of 82 years. And when we finish the mapping of the human genome, I think sometime early in the next century, we'll look at babies being born that have a life expectancy of nearly 100 years. So I think that this is just a problem that--I applaud the lack of defensiveness that all the players in the health care system have displayed here. I applaud the report. And we know what the dimensions of this problem are, and now we've got the people in place with the determination to solve it. And I think that we ought to look at this as a very positive event in the progress of American health care. Elian Gonzalez”