Bill Clinton: “I'm against sin, aren't you? [Laughter] Let me say one thing, since you asked Dr. Becker the question. There has been an…”

“I'm against sin, aren't you? [Laughter] Let me say one thing, since you asked Dr. Becker the question. There has been an assumption in many of the business articles about the health care plan that it was necessary because too many people don't have health insurance and in any given 2- or 3-year period about one in five or one in four Americans will be without it. But the assumption is that it will be a job drain. That assumes that we will pile costs on top of what is already the most expensive system in the world by a good long ways. I believe that this will be a job generator if we implement it sensibly and gradually and over time we slow the rate of growth of health care costs. Right now we have to compete with other countries that are spending under 9 percent of their income on health care and covering everyone with outcomes and life expectancy and health that are as good or better than ours, and we're over 14 percent. If we don't change, we'll be up to 19 percent by the end of the decade without covering everybody and with no improvements in the present problem. So my judgment is that if we do this right, it will be a job creator. So I think you have two things here, we have better health care and more security for American families and a better economic environment over the long run. I've already talked more than I meant to. Maybe I'll win a Nobel Prize for that theory. [Laughter]”