Bill Clinton: “Lunch? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Would it make you feel better if I said I didn't enjoy it? I mean--[laughter]--anyway, and…”

“Lunch? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Would it make you feel better if I said I didn't enjoy it? I mean--[laughter]--anyway, and they knew you were all here, and we had 700 or 800 people out on the lawn for the national service signing. And four or five of these folks that have been covering Washington for 20 years said they had never seen the White House so busy. I didn't know if they were happy or sad about it, but anyway, it's busy. I thank you for coming today. I hope this will be the first of a number of opportunities we have to provide people who have radio talk shows and who communicate with millions of Americans on an intimate basis, daily, to come to the White House to have these kinds of briefings. You've already heard all the basic approaches that the administration is going to take on health care and that will be hopefully crystallized in a compelling way in my address to the Congress and to the country tomorrow evening. So, I thought what I would do is make a general statement about how this fits into the overall approach the administration is taking and then answer your questions. I'd rather spend time just answering your questions. But let me just make a general comment, that I think you can--that runs through the thread of debate that we had on the economic program, on the health care issue, on NAFTA, on the crime bill that's coming up, on the welfare reform issue, on all the major things we're trying to come to grips with. It is now commonplace to say that we are living through a time of profound change, not only in our country but around the world. People are trying to come to grips with a rate and nature of change that comes along less frequently than once a generation. You may know that just since you've been sitting here, Boris Yeltsin has dissolved the Russian Parliament and called elections for that Parliament in December, and his major opponent has apparently declared himself President. I mean, they are going through these things, trying to come to grips with what it means to be a democracy and what it means to try to change the economy. In our country, if we're going to continue to be the leading power of the world, not just militarily but economically, socially, the shining light of the world, this has to be a good place for most Americans to live. Most people have to know that if they work hard and play by the rules that they can make the changes that are sweeping through this country and the world their friends and not their enemies. They have to believe that as citizens they can work together and trust the major institutions of our society to function well, to meet these changes, to respond to them. We confront this bewildering array of challenges: the size of the deficit, the fact that we have an investment deficit, too, in many critical areas, the health care crisis, at a time when most people are quite insecure in their own lives and most Americans have worked harder for stagnant or lower wages for the last 10 to 20 years, when they're paying more for the basics in life, when they have lost faith in the fundamental capacity of political institutions to represent them and to solve problems. I think you can see that in the 700,000 letters we got on health care. The number of people who would say, you know, ``What's wrong with me? I worked hard all my life, and I lost my health insurance,'' or ``My child got sick, and now I can never change my job,'' or ``My wife and I spend 60 hours a week running our business. And our health insurance was $200 a month 4 years ago, and it's over $900 a month today,'' you know that things are out of control. I say that because I believe providing security in the health care area and in meeting the other objectives we talked about, quality and choice and cost controls and all, is a necessary precondition, not only to improve the health care of the American people but to help root the American people again in this moment, to make them freer to face the other challenges that we face. I see in this debate over NAFTA--which I have wrestled with in my own mind, that is, the whole nature of our trade relations with Mexico and other countries and where we are going for far longer than I've been President, I had to deal with it when I was a Governor. I see people, some of them looking ahead with confidence in the future that we can triumph in the world of the 21st century, that we can compete and win, that we can create tomorrow's jobs, and others so uncertain about it, just trying to hold on to today and to yesterday's jobs. So, what I am trying to do is to give the American people a greater sense of security over those things that are basic to their lives that they can control and at the same time challenge our people to assume responsibility for dealing with our problems and for marching confidently into the future. That's what this national service issue is all about that we celebrated today on the White House lawn. And therefore, the health care issue is about more than health care. It is about restoring self-confidence to America's families and businesses. It's about restoring some discipline to our budget and investment decisions, not only in the Government but in the private sector. It's about giving us the sense that we actually can move forward and win in the face of all these changes. I cannot under--or I guess I cannot overstate how important I think it is, not only on its own terms but also for what it might mean for America over the long run. Yes. Health Care Reform”