I'm here to discuss one of America's most urgent and continuing challenges.
All Americans should be free to purchase affordable, portable, private health insurance for themselves
and their families. The steps that I am proposing will guarantee access to affordable health coverage
for every child in America and will provide more affordable health care options for millions more adults.
Let me be clear: we cannot rest until every single American has affordable health coverage...
...For more than 50 years, we have been engaged in a battle to provide the kind of health care a great nation owes its people. Now, after over half a century of effort, conflict, and concern, it is time to move past theoretical and philosophical divisions; beyond a sterile debate about labels and abstractions to ask how we can now take concrete, specific, realistic steps to improve health coverage for all the American people. As President, I will fight for a series of steps which do just that.
The medical miracle we know to be the American health-care system must be accessible to all our citizens. We live in a nation with the greatest medical care in the world, yet 43 million Americans are uninsured. And that number - notwithstanding the extraordinary growth in the economy -continues to rise.
The U.S. virtually guarantees access to costly crisis care. Yet primary and preventive care coverage are often missing. When a crisis hits, those in need show up at our emergency rooms. We spend billions to treat sickness and disease that could have been prevented or treated earlier for far less. All Americans should be free from the fear of being left behind in this information-age economy without real health security.
The focus of my proposal is health care for working families. It will put doctors and patients in charge, not HMO's and insurance companies. We must and we can move toward access to affordable, quality health care for every American family. Because that's what freedom is all about.
There are too many children and families without access to health care coverage today. The answer is to address the inefficiencies in our health-care system and expand coverage by making resources available and by stimulating competition and choice. New innovative uses of the tax code can provide a means for greater access, portability, and choice. As a first step we should immediately provide a 100-percent deduction for the health insurance expenses of the self-employed.
We must address this and other problems without endangering the achievements of American medicine. Our market-based health-care system has brought better care, with greater access, to more Americans than ever in history. We must ensure that physicians and other health-care professionals have the freedom and flexibility to provide the best possible care.
The first thing we need to do as we head into the 21st century, is to begin moving towards a health insurance system that: number one, empowers patients and gives them the freedom to choose the coverage they need and the doctors they trust....and number two, provides real financial protection and catastrophic coverage in the event of a major illness or accident.
All Americans should be free to purchase affordable, portable, private health insurance for themselves and their families. The steps that I am proposing will guarantee access to affordable health coverage for every child in America and will provide more affordable health care options for millions more adults. But let me be clear: we cannot rest until every single American has affordable health coverage.
From tougher cigarette warning labels and tough measures to combat teen smoking to a crack-down on health care fraud against seniors, for me, improving health care for working families is central to the work of change.
By the way, I do have a complaint that I'd like to mention to you briefly. What does Leonardo DiCaprio do during the entire movie "Titanic"? He smokes. And not the Congress-not the Congress-but you the people are going to have to talk to the people in Hollywood and in the entertainment industry. We need to stop glamorizing smoking. I understand that people smoked during the period of time depicted in "Titanic"-they did a whole lot of other things toothat would not have had to be displayed. Look, we don't have to glamorize this habit and help addict our children. And I don't know what effect it has on young people, but I can't believe that it's beneficial. So I would urge you to seriously take up the cause of sending a message to Hollywood.
Because there is a problem in America and we all know what the problem is: it's the fact that 3,000 children every day start smoking; that a thousand of them will die early as a result of that illness; and that 400,000 Americans will die this year as a result of tobacco-related illness. And these are facts that cannot be refuted.
Today, sadly, many young people have become cynical about public service. They have been let down by the people they should be able to look up to. When Americans were asked to rank various occupations according to their high ethical standards, public officials came in near the bottom of the list - even lower than pollsters.
As a young woman looking forward to my life's work, I found my highest ideals in public service. It was considered a noble thing to do! I believed, and still believe, that the greatest life is a life of service … and that public service, in a democracy such as ours, is one of the most satisfying ways to give back.
I deeply believe in this great democracy of ours. I travel a lot around the world, and everywhere I go in the world people look to this country. It's remarkable the way they admire and respect America. Not just because we won the cold war, but because of the fundamental freedoms that we have in this country and the way that we as a nation behave to our own citizens as well as to the citizens of other countries.
Our free society requires an environment that respects liberty and individual rights. If we are to shape a world that is open to our values and ideals and well-being, we must accept our leadership role.
As President, I will commit our nation to the goals of universal rights for access to quality, affordable health care for every American.
My plan will extend that access to millions of Americans who don't have it today, provide a strong safety net for others, and move us toward full access. And it will do so by building on the strengths of our existing health care system, and maintaining the strength of the American economy. I believe that every step we take as Americans must be fiscally responsible, and economically sound.
My husband Geoffrey and I could not be richer in the happiness and love we share with our sons. As parents, we have been blessed. But, unfortunately, too many parents and single parents in our country go to sleep at night worrying about their child's health and what would happen if their child became terribly sick.
The lack of health insurance for children is a nightmare for parents. For a sick child, it is perhaps the most horrifying experience of all.
I am saddened when I hear of a child's ear infection going untreated and leading to hearing loss so grave that the child can barely hear her teacher's voice, all because the family can't afford a doctor.
I am not satisfied when life-or-death medical decisions are made by HMO bureaucrats at the other end of a telephone line - people with no license to practice medicine, and no right to play God. One health plan even told its patients they had to call the HMO before calling 911. What's next?
Our cause is working families. And in this campaign, and in the years ahead, let's put their interests first - ahead of the special interests, ahead of anything.
We must use our prosperity now to bring new change to our health care system to make our families healthier and more hopeful for the new century ahead. That's the kind of change that works for working families and that is why I am running for President of these United States.
Thank you very much. May God bless each and every one of you!
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