Bill Clinton: “First of all, by providing insurance to everyone based on a community-based rating, we would never put an employer in…”

“First of all, by providing insurance to everyone based on a community-based rating, we would never put an employer in the position of saying, ``I'd like to hire you, but you're disabled and something terrible might happen to you. And if I had to take care of it on my insurance, my premiums will go up 40 percent the next year, and I'd have to drop you anyway. So I can't do it,'' which is basically what happens now. A lot of disabled people are going basically to waste in our country because they could be gainfully employed, they could be making major contributions, and they're not hired because people either can't get insurance for them or because they're afraid it will bankrupt them. Under our system, you'd be just like any other American citizen. You would pick a plan, you would go into it, and because of the community rating system, you would be insured. And therefore, there would never be a disincentive for an employer to hire you. And you would always have that insurance. And if you needed supporting services, even at work as we build in these long-term care services, we'll be able to have not only long-term care in the home, but some support services associated with people who work. That will save this country a lot of money over the long run, because you're going to have a lot of folks who don't work now working. But there are a lot of people who are disabled, as you know, who are on Medicaid only because they couldn't get private health insurance as workers. And just like this man who just talked to us over here about his daughter, there are people in this country who have quit their jobs and gone onto welfare and drawn Medicaid only because of the illness of their children. So that's something the disabled popu- lation has in common with people like him. That will never happen again. People will be able to keep working. It's very important. Mr. Koppel. Mr. President, we're going to have to take another quick break. When we come back, though, we've got a public policy expert up at Harvard who is just seething at some of the numbers. He wants to have at you. And I know you want to correct a couple of things or at least make an amendment to a couple of things that you said in our prime time segment. So we have all of that ahead of us when we come back in just a moment. [The network took a commercial break.] Mr. Koppel. That's another one of our poll results, Mr. President: What will happen to your quality of health care? Twenty-seven percent think it's going to get better, 27 percent think it's going to get worse, and 42 percent think it's going to stay the same. You've obviously got some missionary work to do there. Do you want to comment on that poll and then get to the amendments, to what you wanted to correct?”