As printed in USA Today, November 20, 1997
When President Clinton announced during the last campaign that the education of America’s young people was to be the priority of his second administration, he joined a train of political freight cars that has been growing impressively longer over the past 200 years but which has seldom, if ever, left the marshaling yard.
Before a medical student becomes a doctor, he or she must take the Hippocratic Oath, a medical code of ethics that begins, "First, do no harm." In contrast, members of presidential commissions take no such oaths, as evidenced by the "Consumer Bill of Rights" unveiled recently by President Clinton’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry.
The following is an excerpt from a speech delivered at a Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation "Congressional Staff Education Luncheon" on September 15, 1997.
This is an address by William J. Bennett to the Budget Committee Taskforce on Education.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
It is a pleasure to address this taskforce of the Budget Committee on Education. I commend your decision to conduct a review of American K-12 education.
Testimony
of
JAMES C. MILLER III
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HEALTH & ENVIRONMENT
COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
on
H.R. 1415, THE "PATIENT ACCESS TO RESPONSIBLE CARE ACT"
The House and Senate will soon have the opportunity to vote on whether to give America’s depression-era sugar program a new lease on life. How Congress chooses to deal with this program — perpetuating or phasing it out — will demonstrate whether it has heard the message sent by voters a year ago to eliminate wasteful programs, or whether it will continue politics-as-usual.
Americans have always taken pride in being the freest people in the world. As recently as 1994, the American public recoiled at the thought of receiving health care through a socialist system similar to Great Britain's. Among that system's many horrors, "more than one million patients are waiting for surgery in Britain, for everything from tonsillectomies to heart bypasses to exploratory surgery for cancer."1
On September 16, President Clinton finally introduced his legislative proposal for renewing fast track authority to negotiate trade agreements. This authority, which expired in 1994, would allow the president to negotiate trade pacts that Congress must approve or disapprove by a simple up or down vote. Therefore, members of Congress — and the special interests who attempt to influence them — could not amend trade agreements during the legislative process.
Chairman Thomas, Commissioners, good afternoon. My name is Michael Cannon and I represent Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan consumer group with 250,000 members. Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation believes consumer choice and competition among health care and coverage providers are the keys to consumer protection. These tools enable consumers and health coverage providers to discipline those providers who fail to offer a quality product.
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