Bill Clinton: “Well, the courts will decide the issue. And as you know, I don't agree with the policy of the ban, and I attempted to…”

“Well, the courts will decide the issue. And as you know, I don't agree with the policy of the ban, and I attempted to change it. And I did get some change, but not the change that I wanted. And there was a vote in the Senate last week, which I hope you noticed, which showed that only one-third of the Senate basically supported my position. And the reason that we had to have a compromise is we didn't have the votes to get more done. Part of getting the agreement to stop the investigations, to not automatically throw people out who said they were gay and at least give them a chance to demonstrate that they were complying with the code of military conduct, and not using people's associations against them to investigate them, in other words, creating a big zone of privacy for gays and lesbians in the military service, was the agreement to go forward with the lawsuit. The courts know what the arguments are. The Justice Department can't just drop it because there are too many other cases. In other words, there are other cases at the same level of court, and they've all gone against the service personnel. So they're being appealed up anyway by people who lost them. And so, it would only change the law, in other words if we changed it. It would only change the law for that circuit, that one Federal district. And if the court of appeals overturned it, it would only change the law for that one court of appeals district, and the act that Congress has enacted would still control it for everybody else. We have no reason to believe that the Supreme Court will uphold the ruling. If it does, of course, then the whole issue will be moot. I think everybody's better off in trying to get a legal resolution of it. And if we just stopped it, it would die right there with that one court. It would be nice for everybody there, but it wouldn't have national impact. Mr. Atkinson. From Los Angeles again, Paul Moyer has another question. Health Care Reform [Mr. Moyer introduced a couple whose twins were born prematurely and had to stay in the hospital for several weeks. They asked if the new health care plan would cover families who had very high medical expenses.]”