Bill Clinton: “Thank you very much, Bob, for that fine introduction. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for the warm welcome. This is the…”

“Thank you very much, Bob, for that fine introduction. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for the warm welcome. This is the biggest stage I've been on in quite a while. I'm told it's so big because you're having the Oak Ridge Boys tonight. That made me wish I'd been invited later instead of earlier. [Laughter] I want to thank your president, Bill Taylor, for the invitation to come here and Bob Elsner for that fine introduction, especially what he said about health care. I guess if it were easy, it would have been done a long time ago. I look out in this crowd and see many friends of mine from across the country. I saw my good friend Neil Offen, the president of the Direct Selling Association, a minute ago. And I've already spotted five or six people in the audience that I've known for years. I thank you all for inviting me here and for giving me a chance to talk about health care today. I'd like to just begin by trying to put this very briefly in the context in which I view it as your President. I think my job is to do everything I can to help every American reach his or her God-given potential and to try to bring the American people together to make our country stronger. In other words, even though you often don't read about it in these terms, the real purpose of our political system, when it's working properly, is to get people together and to get things done.…”