Remarks by the Fist Lady to Lehman Brothers Health Corporation

The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, June 15, 1994

The William J. Clinton Presidential Library, Previously Restricted Documents

Question: This next question… comes from Scott Engstrom (phonetic) of Franklin Templeton Funds. He asks, it seems clear that everyone on Capitol Hill is in favor of “health care reform” and that if the Administration wanted to compromise, some legislation could be passed very quickly. Is the danger of that approach from your perspective that that you may be giving up a mandate at a specific period in history in which you may be able to effectuate radical change? Is it now or never for massive health care reform?

Mrs. Hillary Clinton: No, because what I think would happen if there is not health care reform this year, and if, for whatever reason, the Congress doesn’t pass health care reform, I believe, and I may be to totally off base on this, but I believe that by the year 2000 we will have a single payer system. I don’t think it’s — I don’t even think it’s a close call politically.

I think the momentum for a single payer system will sweep the country. And regardless of the referendum outcome in California, it will be such a huge popular issue in the sense of populist issue that even if it’s not successful the first time, it will eventually be. So for those who think that building on the existing public-private system with an employer mandate is radical, I think they are extremely short-sighted, but that is their choice.

There are many ways to compromise health care reform, and I don’t think that the President could have been clearer in every public statement he has made that he has one bottom line. It is universal coverage by a date certain. And he has basically told the Congress, you know, you’ve got different ways of getting there. Come to us, and let’s look at it. There are only three ways to get to universal coverage. You know, a lot of people stand up and applaud universal coverage, and they sit down, and you say, “Well, how are you going to get there?”, and they don’t want to confront that there are only three ways.

You either have a general tax — the single payer approach that replaces existing private investment — or you have an employer mandate, or you have an individual mandate. And there isn’t any other way to get to universal coverage. The market cannot deliver universal coverage in the foreseeable future, and any compromise that people try to suggest that would permit the market to have a few years to try to deliver universal coverage without a mandate that would take effect to actually finish the job will guarantee a single payer heath care system.

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Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

Happy New Year!

(What else can I say?)