Reform “What”s Right’
by President Clinton promoted his embattled health care reform plan Saturday at a high-tech children’s hospital here after a poignant meeting with several young patients.
“Providing health care and the peace of mind that comes with it is . . . a practical expression of our deepest faith and ideals,” Clinton said in a radio address that tied his call for universal health insurance to Easter and Passover. “Health care reform is about doing what’s right, about having compassion and bestowing dignity on each of us as God’s children,” he said.
Clinton spoke from Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, whose doctors and nurses, he said “take all children in need.”
“That’s what we want for all America,” he said.
Clinton and his wife Hillary met with five children ages 4 to 12 in a brightly lit physical therapy room filled with colorful toys and huge stuffed animals.
Two of the children demonstrated their progress by rising from their wheelchairs and – in halting steps and using walkers – making the few steps to the Clintons.
“Isn’t he great,” a beaming Clinton said about Nicholas Navarro, a 12-year old with cerebral palsy. Navarro was operated on only three days ago, and his left arm and leg were in a cast.
Another child, 6-year-old Geoffrey Martin, was unable to walk or play ball due to rheumatoid arthritiswhen he was admitted four weeks ago. Saturday, he got to play nerf baseball with the president.
Clinton, after hearing critics assail his health plan as too complicated, described it Saturday as straightforward, fair and compassionate.
In particular, he defended its requirement that employers offer insurance and pay for much of it. He called the mandate “simply building on what works in the current system.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., chairman of the full Ways and Means Committee, served notice Saturday that the full committee will write the financing provisions of any universal health insurance plan.
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