Bill Clinton: “Let me, first of all, say I thank you for being on the program, and I hope your child will be well. I did call two other…”

“Let me, first of all, say I thank you for being on the program, and I hope your child will be well. I did call two other sets of parents who are in the hospital with their children, on the way out here, just to inquire about that and to get their ideas about what we should do. Let me answer your second question first. As I'm sure you know, I've asked my wife to head a task force to come up with a bill within 100 days which will bring a new system of health care to America which offers us the chance to provide basic health coverage to everybody, to stop people from losing their health coverage when they lose a job, to stop people from their inability to change jobs because they've had someone in their family sick, and to bring the cost of health care in line with inflation. I think we can do that. And if we don't do it, we'll never balance the budget, and we'll never restore health to this economy. Fifty percent of the projected deficit growth between now and the year 2000 is all in health care costs. So it is a terrific human issue, but it's a big economic issue for Americans. And the answer to your question is: Within 100 days of my becoming President, we're going to have a bill to the Congress to do just what you've said. Now, the second thing, this E. coli thing--have you all been following it up in Washington? I asked the Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Espy, who is responsible for the regulation of the slaughterhouses and the meat before it comes to a restaurant, to go up there and look into the situation. And we think there are two things that have to be done. First of all, we've got to make it clear to people who are providing the fast food that they've got to do everything they can to comply with our cooking regulations. Some of these viruses would have clearly died had the heat been observed. On the other hand, we've got to find ways to do more inspections and to try to do them in a more effective way. And so we are reviewing now the possibility of not only hiring more inspectors, which I've already agreed to do, but secondly, seeing if there is some way we can do a better job of actually inspecting the meat, empowering the inspectors to do some more things. We have got to do that. And I can tell you, if you have any more ideas, I'd like to have them. The parents that I talked to today had some, actually, some quite good ideas that we're going to pursue. And I want to invite you and any others who are listening who have other ideas to let me know. But you can look forward to more inspectors, and we're looking for ways to inspect better as well. Mr. Bonds. In that case, you're increasing Government.”