Bill Clinton: “I don't mean to minimize this, but let me tell you what the flip side of this is. Every year one of the things that adds…”

“I don't mean to minimize this, but let me tell you what the flip side of this is. Every year one of the things that adds to the cost of health care in America is cost shifting. So every time the Government doesn't pay for the people we're supposed to cover or somebody else doesn't pay and somebody shows up in an--somebody without health insurance normally won't get health care in a preventive and primary way where it's cheapest, but they'll get it when it's too late, when they're really sick, often showing up at the emergency room. All those costs get shifted onto someone else. And then their competitiveness is eroded, so they eventually drop their health insurance. And more and more people keep dropping it. It's just sort of in a death spiral every year where more and more people drop their insurance, more and more people are uninsured. And then the people who are insured are paying for all of them when they finally access the system. And as I said, we're the only country in the world that does it this way. We're the only country in the world with 1,500 separate health insurance companies writing thousands of different policies and trying to divide little small businesses up into smaller and smaller groups. Some of these groups are so small that the overhead, that is, the insurance company administrative costs and profit, is up to 40 cents on the dollar. We can't sustain the system. I don't pretend that even a dollar a day per employee won't be more difficult for some small businesses. It's just that we can't figure out any other way to fairly apportion the cost of this system and keep everybody covered and finally get the cost under control. The costs are spiraling out of control. The other alternatives are nobody gets coverage, or the taxpayers pay it. And if the taxpayers pay it then, in effect, we're raising taxes on people who are already paying way too much for their health care to pay for people who aren't paying anything. So I think this is a fair way. And what I would ask you to do and everybody in your circumstances is when we produce the copy, the final copy of this health care plan, because we're still in extensive consultations on it, but in the next several days, I'd like to ask you to go over it, calculate exactly how it will affect you, and then draw a conclusion about how you think it will impact you. Look at the specific facts and get back in touch with Erskine Bowles and tell him how you think it will affect you. [A participant asked who would be responsible if the new plan is overutilized and costs begin to rise.]”