The Unique Voice of Hillary Clinton: on Health Care
Americans want system with quality & choice
We have looked at every other system in the world. We have tried to talk to every expert whom we can find to describe how any other country tries to provide health care. We have concluded that what is needed is an American solution
for an American problem by creating an American health care system that works for America. Two of the principals that underlie that American solution are quality and choice.
Source: Unique Voice, p.149: Speech to American Medical Association
Jun 13, 1993
Guaranteed benefits & focus on prevention
I know no way to attempt what we are doing; to achieve universal coverage, to guarantee a comprehensive benefits package, to begin to simplify a system that has become much too cumbersome, bureaucratic, and overregulated, to attempt to begin to
achieve savings and eliminate inefficiencies, but at the same time to enhance quality, to guarantee choice.We should build on the employer system. The employers contribute, those who work contribute, and all of us are thus paying our fair share.
Source: Unique Voice, p.165: Speech at Institute of Medicine
Oct 19, 1993
Stupid to spend on administration rather than on doctoring
We have the finest doctors and hospitals in the world. We spend money on paperwork, we spend money on bureaucracy, that we shouldn’t have to spend.
What the president’s plan is designed to do is to put doctors back in charge of the system, where they can be making the decisions, not insurance company executives or government, which is the way it is too often today.
Source: Unique Voice, p.154: Speech to American Legion Conference
Feb 15, 1994
Medicare is biased against nursing home alternatives
The problem for Americans in the Medicare program is there is no support for alternatives to nursing home care. We want to provide long-term care options, so that families will not be forced to put their family members in nursing homes.
Providing a home health aide, giving some respite to the full-time caretaker of an Alzheimer’s patient, that is all much cheaper than putting the person in a nursing home. Let’s enable older people to live with dignity.
Source: Unique Voice, p.161: Speech at Washington University
Mar 15, 1994
Page last updated: Feb 26, 2019