Women's Issues in the Debate
Presidential Debate 2 Excerpt: Health Care
The complete transcript of this debate is available from the Commission on Presidential Debates
Mr. Lehrer:
New question. As I was saying. Both of you -- Governor, both of you
have talked much about Medicare and health care for seniors. What about
the more than 40 million younger Americans who do not have health
insurance right now? What would you do about that?
Governor Bush
Well, I've got a plan to do something about that. It's to make health
care affordable and available this way. First, there's some who should
be buying health care who choose not to. There's some --
Mr. Lehrer:
Some of the 40 million.
Governor Bush
Some of the healthy folks, healthy young kids say I'll never get sick,
therefore I don't need health care right now. For those what I think we
need to do is to develop an investment-type vehicle that would be an
incentive for them to invest, like medical savings accounts with rollover
capacity. In other words, you say to a youngster, it will be in your
financial interest to start saving for future illness, but for the
working folks that do want to have health care that can't afford it, a
couple of things we need to do. One, we need more community health
centers. I've developed -- put out money in my budget to expand
community health centers all around the country. These are places where
people can get primary care. Secondly -- and they're good. They're very
important parts of the safety net of health care. Secondly, that you get
a $2,000 rebate from the government if you're a family of $30,000 or
less -- it scales down as you get higher -- that you can use to purchase
health care in the private markets. It will be a huge down payment for a
pretty darn good system. If you allow -- also allow -- convince states
to -- allow states to allow the mother to match some of the children's
health insurance money with it, the pool purchasing power. And to make
health care more affordable, allow business associations like the
National Federal of Independent Business or the Chamber of Commerce or
the National Restaurant Association to write association plans across
jurisdictional lines so that small businesses have got the capacity to
have national pooling to drive the cost of insurance down. I think
that's the very best way to go. It empowers people, it trusts people,
it makes -- and it's a practical way to encourage people to purchase
health care insurance.
Vice President Gore
It's one of my top priorities, Jim, to give every single child in the
United States affordable health care within the next four years. I would
like to see eventually in this country some form of universal health
care, but I'm not for a government-run system. In fact, I'm for
shrinking the size of government. I want a smaller and smarter
government. I have been in charge of this reinventing government
streamlining project that's reduced the size of government by more than
300,000 people in the last several years. And the budget plan that I've
put out, according to the "Los Angeles Times" again, the way these things
are typically measured as a percentage of the GDP, will bring government
spending down to the lowest level in 50 years. So I want to proceed
carefully to cover more people. But I think we should start by greatly
expanding the so-called child health insurance or CHIP program to give
health insurance to every single child in this country. I think it's
intolerable that we have so many millions of children without any health
insurance. So it's one of my top priorities. Now, I know that we have
some disagreements on this. And I'm sorry to tell you that, you know,
there is a record here. And Texas ranks 49th out of the 50 states in
health care -- in children with health care. 49th for women with health
care, and 50th for families with health care. So it is a priority for
me. I guarantee you. I'm not aware of any program -- well, I'll just
leave it at that. I think it ought to be a top priority.
Mr. Lehrer:
Governor, did the -- are the vice president's figures correct about
Texas?
Governor Bush
First of all, let me say he's not for a government-run health care
system? I thought that's exactly what he and Mrs. Clinton and them
fought for in 1993 was a government-run health care system. It was
fortunately stopped in its tracks. Secondly, we spend $4.7 billion a
year on the uninsured in the State of Texas. Our rate of uninsured, the
percentage of uninsured in Texas has gone down, while the percentage of
uninsured in America has gone up. Our CHIPS program got a late start
because our government meets only four months out of every two years, Mr.
Vice President. It may come as a shock for somebody who has been in
Washington for so long. But actually limited government can work in the
second largest state in the union. And therefore Congress passes the
bill after our session in 1997 ended, we passed an enabling legislation
in 1999. We've signed up over 110,000 children to the CHIPS program.
For comparable states our size, we're signing them up as fast as any
other state. You can quote all the numbers you want, but I'm telling you
we care about our people in Texas. We spent a lot of money to make sure
people get health care in the State of Texas, and we're doing a better
job than they are at the national level for reducing uninsured.
Mr. Lehrer:
Is he right?
Vice President Gore
Well, I don't know about all these percentages that he throws out, but I
do know that -- I speculate that the reason why he didn't answer your
question directly as to whether my numbers were right, the facts were
right about Texas ranking dead last in families with health insurance and
49th out of 50 for both children and women, is because those facts are
correct. And as for why it happened, I'm no expert on the Texas
procedures, but what my friends there tell me is that the governor
opposed a measure put forward by Democrats in the legislature to expand
the number of children that would be covered. And instead directed the
money toward a tax cut, a significant part of which went to wealthy
interests. He declared the need for a new tax cut for the oil companies
in Texas an emergency need, and so the money was taken away from the CHIP
program. There's -- you don't have to take my word for this. There is
now a federal judge's opinion about the current management of this
program ordering the State of Texas to do -- you should read that judge's
language about this. I believe there are 1.4 million children in Texas
who do not have health insurance. 600,000 of whom, and maybe some of
those have since gotten it, but as of a year ago 600,000 of them were
actually eligible for it but they couldn't sign up for it because of the
barriers that they had set up.
Mr. Lehrer:
Let's let the governor respond to that. Are those numbers correct? Are
his charges correct?
Governor Bush
If he's trying to allege that I'm a hard-hearted person and I don't care
about children, he's absolutely wrong. We've spent $4.7 billion a year
in the State of Texas for uninsured people. And they get health care.
Now, it's not the most efficient way to get people health care. But I
want to remind you, the number of uninsured in America during their watch
has increased. He can make any excuse he wants, but the facts are that
we're reducing the number of uninsured percentage of our population. And
as the percentage of the population is increasing nationally, somehow the
allegation that we don't care and we're going to give money for this
interest or that interest and not for children in the State of Texas is
totally absurd. Let me just tell you who the jury is. The people of
Texas. There's only been one governor ever elected to back-to-back
four-year terms, and that was me. And I was able to do so with a lot of
Democrat votes, nearly 50% of the Hispanic vote, about 27% of the
African-American vote, because people know I'm a conservative person and
a compassionate person. So he can throw all the kinds of numbers around.
I'm just telling you our state comes together to do what is right. We
come together both Republicans and Democrats.
Mr. Lehrer:
Let me put that directly to you, Vice President Gore. The reason you
brought this up, is it -- are you suggesting that those numbers and that
record will reflect the way Governor Bush will operate in this area of
health insurance as president?
Vice President Gore
Yes, yes. But it's not a statement about his heart. I don't claim to
know his heart. I think he's a good person. I make no allegations about
that. I believe him when he says that he has a good heart. I know
enough about your story to admire a lot of the things that you have done
as a person. But I think it's about his priorities. And let me tell you
exactly why I think that the choice he made to give a tax cut for the oil
companies and others before addressing this -- I mean, if you were the
governor of a state that was dead last in health care for families, and
all of a sudden you found yourself with the biggest surplus your state
had ever had in its history, wouldn't you want to maybe use some of it to
climb from 50th to, say, 45 or 40 or something or maybe better? I
would. Now, but here is why it's directly relevant, Jim. Because by his
own budget numbers, his proposals for spending on tax cuts for the
wealthiest of the wealthy are more than the new spending proposals that
he has made for health care and education and national defense all
combined. According to his own numbers. So it's not a question of his
heart, as far as I know. It's a question of priorities and values. See,
you know --
Governor Bush
First of all, that's simply not true what he just said, of course. And
secondly, I repeat to you --
Mr. Lehrer:
What is not true, Governor?
Governor Bush
That we spent -- the top 1% receive 223 as opposed to 445 billion in new
spending. The top -- let's talk about my tax plan. The top 1% will pay
one-third of all the federal income taxes. And in return, get one-fifth
of the benefits, because most of the tax reductions go to the people at
the bottom end of the economic ladder. That stands in stark contrast, by
the way, to a man who is going to leave 50 million -- 50 million
Americans out of tax relief. We just have a different point of view.
It's a totally different point of view. He believes only the right
people ought to get tax relief. I believe everybody who pays taxes ought
to get tax relief. Let me go back to Texas, for example, for a minute.
We pay 4.7 billion. I can't emphasize to you how much. I signed a bill
that puts CHIPS in place. The bill finally came out at the end of the
1999 session. We're working hard to sign up children. We're doing it
faster than any other state our size, comparable state. We're making
really good progress. And our state cares a lot about our children. My
priority is going to be the health of our citizens. These folks have had
eight years to get something done in Washington, D.C. on the uninsured.
They have not done it. They've had eight years to get something done on
Medicare. And they have not got it done. And my case to the American
people is, if you're happy with inactivity, stay with the horse. The
horse is up there now. But if you want change, you need to get somebody
that knows how to bring Republicans and Democrats together to get
positive things done for American.
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