Bill Clinton: “Well, we're looking at that. Let me say, we're trying to do more to try to reduce the cost of people and property of…”

“Well, we're looking at that. Let me say, we're trying to do more to try to reduce the cost of people and property of natural disasters by doing a better job of thinking ahead, by choosing where we will build with an awareness of potential disasters, by constructing what we do build very well, by retrofitting where it's cost-effective. You know, a lot of the retrofitting that was done on the highway structures in California really worked. And if we had had another 6, 7 months before this last earthquake, we would have retrofitted more and had even less damage. So these are things that we have to really invest a lot more time and effort in. With regard to having a Federal disaster insurance fund, I think that you have to remember that insurance works when the risk is spread broadly. And that requires a lot of people to participate, including many who don't think they're particularly at risk and others who may not be particularly at risk. So when the taxpayers do it like this, we spread the risk very broadly across all of us who live in America because some of us are in trouble. If there were a way to use insurance mechanisms to do a better job so we wouldn't have to increase the deficit, that would be better still. But we have to ask ourselves whether that would be putting even more burden on people who are really not at risk. We're thinking about it, and we're soliciting ideas. And there are a lot of bright people in universities all over California and in businesses who may have some good ideas about this. And I assure you that--three or four have already been presented to us, and we're going to research them all very carefully and eagerly look for other options, because we have been very fortunate that we could get the money through the Congress to deal with the floods and to deal with the earthquakes. But it is a difficult thing. Health Care Reform Mr. Jackson. When we have health care reform, will the new system, whatever its final shape, better serve the masses in time of a major disaster?”