George H.W. Bush: “We've got a good health care program. Let me tell you how I feel about health care. I've noted that when people need…”

“We've got a good health care program. Let me tell you how I feel about health care. I've noted that when people need specialized care, need quality care, they come to the United States. We have the best quality health care in the world. What we don't have is access for those that are in the poorer end of the economic scale. The proposal that we have up there guarantees access through pooling of insurance, guarantees access to every person. It involves giving vouchers to these people that have no insurance. Those vouchers could only be used to get insurance. The insurance would be transferable, so when you left a company you couldn't be cut off and then not get it in the next place. This is a very comprehensive bill. It includes in it, incidentally, trying to do something about malpractice reform. One of the reasons costs are so high is that all these doctors get sued, frivolously, a lot of the time. We're suing each other too much and caring for each other too little. So we're trying to get that under control. But take a look. And I will say this: It is the only comprehensive health care reform proposal before the Congress right now. At first, they started off saying: Well, let's try the Canada plan. Let's try the ``pay or play'' plan that failed so miserably in Massachusetts that all the small companies started moving across the border to some other State. They're moving back now to our plan, which is expanded insurance coverage to guarantee against what you're talking about. I still don't have an easy answer for you on how we get these health care costs under control. And we're never going to do what this gentleman is talking about, get this fiscal sanity going, until we control the mandatory programs that a President has no control over now. I'm talking about the increases in health care, and those kinds of programs that are just going right off the roof. But I'd take a look at our program on health care reform in terms of making insurance available to all. It's expensive; I think it's long overdue, though.”