Bill Clinton: “First of all, let me say that it's not a Government program. The Government will only insure the unemployed uninsured.…”

“First of all, let me say that it's not a Government program. The Government will only insure the unemployed uninsured. Two- thirds of the funding for this program will come from employers and the employees who don't presently contribute anything to the American health care system. Secondly, where have these economists been for the last 15 years? I mean, the American health care system is already 40 percent more expensive than any other one in the world and the only advanced health care system in the world that can't seem to figure out how to provide coverage to everybody while spending 40 percent more than anybody else spends. The budget we just passed in this Government has Medicare and Medicaid going up at 3 times the rate of inflation. We proposed to reduce that in our bill. We have also ceilings on how much health care expenditures can increase in any given year if the competition doesn't cut the costs. Now, if you look around the country at the places which have tried serious efforts at managed competition, including bringing the Medicaid program into a competitive arena, there's every indication that the rate of increase will slow down and that it will work. But the economists, they seem to want it all ways. They criticize me on the one hand for having a ceiling on how much costs could increase in any given year and then saying we don't have any guarantees, if you take it off they won't increase more. And it is difficult to imagine how we could design a system that would have costs more out of control than the one we have. I mean, the reason we have so much support here from employers in heavy industry, for example, who already cover their employees is that they're being killed by the cost increases. The system we have is irresponsible and out of control financially, and doesn't provide health care security to Americans. So we think there are plenty of protections built in to slow the rate of increase in costs. In fact, if anything, I think we've been certainly realistic and then some, in estimating how fast we can slow costs down. That is, even under our plan, it is estimated that the percent of our income going to health care will go from about 14.5 to about 18 by the end of the decade, and that if we just stay with the system we've got, which is the alternative--in all these things, you've got to ask what's the alternative--we'll go from 14.5 to 19 to 20 by the end of the decade. We have allowed and budgeted for significant increased expenses in health care. Republican Criticism”