Bill Clinton: “Thank you for sharing it, and thank you for having the courage to share it. I don't know if I can give you an answer to…”

“Thank you for sharing it, and thank you for having the courage to share it. I don't know if I can give you an answer to the policy questions you raised. Thank you very much for what you said. The first thing you said was you often had to drive your son past hospitals to get to the Indian Health Service. Under our plan, if it passes the way we have presented it, American Indians will be able to get health care either through the Indian Health Service or through another network of health care at their own choice. So that if people, because of where they happen to live, have much better access to some other health care provider, they will be, at their own choice, they will be able to choose to use those facilities. But we feel that the United States has a solemn obligation to maintain the Indian Health Service. And as you probably know, the funding has dropped over years as the number of people using it has dropped. So one of the things that--after the leaders of tribes from all over America came to see us in Washington about this, one of the things we did was to go back and amend the plan to try to strengthen the financial support for the health care service so they would be able to provide particularly the kind of services to people who are out-patients like your son was. So I think in this case, we will give the American Indians more personal choice than many now have. You won't be forced to the health care service. You'll have the option of using something else. But if you do use it, it should be better funded than it now is. [At this point, Dr. Firestone asked about benefits for children with multiple disabilities and chronic illnesses and presented the President with a letter regarding their needs. He then thanked the President for visiting the clinic.]”