Bill Clinton: “Good morning. Today Hillary and I are at the fire station in Amagansett, Long Island, New York, one of many beautiful…”

“Good morning. Today Hillary and I are at the fire station in Amagansett, Long Island, New York, one of many beautiful communities on Long Island, where we're joined today by doctors, nurses, breast cancer patients, and public health advocates to talk about something that concerns all Americans, making a Patients' Bill of Rights the law of the land. I'm also very proud to be joined by Congressman Michael Forbes and his family. Congressman Forbes is a Republican who is cosponsoring bipartisan legislation to achieve a genuine Patients' Bill of Rights. We all know that our health care system is rapidly changing. Since 1990 the number of Americans in managed care has nearly doubled. Today, most Americans, 160 million of us, are in managed care plans. I think that, on balance, managed care has been good for America because it's made health care more affordable and more accessible for more Americans. But sometimes cost cutting can lead to lower standards. That's when the bottomline becomes more important than patients' lives. And when families have nowhere to turn when their loved ones are harmed by health care plans' bad decisions, when there's a denial of specialist care or emergency care when they're plainly needed and recommended by physicians, when those kinds of things happen, we know we have to take action. Whether in managed care or traditional care, every single American deserves quality care. I'm doing everything I can as President to help to meet that challenge.…”