Bill Clinton: “Thank you. She was great, wasn't she? Let's give her a hand. [Applause] Well, I must say that Judith did such a good…”

“Thank you. She was great, wasn't she? Let's give her a hand. [Applause] Well, I must say that Judith did such a good job, there's hardly anything left to say. [Laughter] Thank you very much for being here, and we welcome your daughter here. I want to thank Secretary Shalala and acknowledge the presence in the audience of Deborah Briceland- Betts, the executive director of the Older Women's League; the people here from the Henry Kaiser Family Foundation; and the other representatives of women's groups, senior women's groups, and Medicare advocates. Hillary and Secretary Shalala and I are delighted to welcome you to the White House today, and we thank you for your interest in this critical issue. We are here to discuss what I have repeatedly called a high-class problem. The American people are living longer, especially women. And it is a high-class problem because we have this surplus today, and a projected surplus for several years into the future, which will enable us to deal with the challenge of people living longer and spending more money on Medicare, and then the retirement of the baby boomers, which will put additional pressure on Medicare and on Social Security. It is a high-class problem, but we don't want it to turn into a nightmare because we walked away from it when we could have dealt with it, and we had the money to deal with it--when we had the time to deal with it, and we know good and well we ought to deal with it.…”