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7343666
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Remarks of the President and Question and Answer Session with the Overflow Crowd at Peachtree High School (Atlanta, Georgia) [Ford Speech or Statement]
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7343666
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Remarks of the President and Question and Answer Session with the Overflow Crowd at Peachtree High School (Atlanta, Georgia) [Ford Speech or Statement]
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White House Press Releases (Ford Administration)
Press Releases
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1976-04-23
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1976
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Digitized from Box 24 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APRIL 23, 1976
OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY
(Atlanta, Georgia)
THE WHITE HOUSE
REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT
AND
QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION
WITH THE
OVERFLOW CROWD AT PEACHTREE HIGH SCHOOL
9:00 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it has just been great to
be in Peachtree High School. I can't remember a more
responsive audience, an audience that had better questions,
and I am deeply grateful that all of you came and were
willing to hear it over a PA system. I regret, of course,
that all of you couldn't be where you could have heard and
seen at the same time, so I think in all equity maybe we ought
to let maybe two or four questions come from all of you.
QUESTION: I wonder if you would be willing or
able to confirm any of the allegations by Bernstein and Woodward
about the condition of your predecessor in the last few
weeks of his term in office?
THE PRESIDENT: The question is, can I confirm
or deny any of the allegations in the Woodward and Bernstein
book concerning my predecessor.
The only things I can confirm or deny are my
personal observations and, in my experiences in those last
two or three weeks, I would categorically deny any of the
charges as far as I could tell. And, therefore, I won't
expand my comments beyond that because you ask me what I
know and all I know is what I have said -- that I did not see
any evidence of the things that they allege in that book.
Yes, sir?
QUESTION: Since the United Nations is controlled
mostly by our enemies, don't you think we could withdraw
from the United Nations?
THE PRESIDENT: The question is, do I think we
should withdraw from the United Nations?
I respectfully disagree with that. In my opinion,
you have 140-some nations in there at the present time. It
is a body where if we continue to do what is right and stand
up and fight for what is right, such as Pat Moynihan did and as
Bill Scranton is doing now, I think we will get things done
the way we want them done.
MORE
Page 2
If we leave it and let them do it, you have no
influence, no impact whatsoever, and I have never found you
can win many ballgames by sitting on the sidelines. I think
you have to get in and play in it and that is where we
ought to be.
QUESTION: Is there any chance of a national
health insurance program that is equitable to everybody
being passed?
THE PRESIDENT: The question is, is there any
possibility of an equitable, fair national health insurance
program being enacted?
I don't believe there is any possibility in 1976.
I have for the last 10 years -- 8 of those while I was a
Member of Congress -- seen half a dozen to a dozen various
national health insurance programs recommended by Senator
Kennedy and the American Medical Association, the American
Hospital Association -- well, you name it. They all had
their own plan.
I have seen none that in my judgment we could
afford today. I have seen none that I think Congress would
enact. I see none that have yet balanced out the equities
between the doctor and patient relationship on the one hand,
the cost to the Government on the other, and the bureaucracy
problems on another. Well, there are a whole lot of other
plans.
So to answer your question, there has been no
unanimity on any program that I have seen that would result
in enactment in the foreseeable future.
Now, I would like to add one feature, and this
doesn't mean I am for a particular national health insurance
program because I am not, but I have become deeply concerned
over the last few years for what we call "catastrophic illness"
and how families, even well-to-do families, can carry the
burden and the cost of an extended illness, or a very
extended illness -- and I have seen some very tragic cases
and I suspect many people in this audience have seen families
of friends, of neighbors, of relatives where a tragedy
of that kind has taken place.
I have recommended to the Congress that we attack
that problem in Medicare and Medicaid because that would at
least relieve the financial burdens of those people who
have had a serious catastrophic illness, and there is no
way, except in the most minute cases, where a family can
carry the costs that we now have in those instances.
Yes?
MORE
Page 3
QUESTION: Doesn't that go for all persons over
the age of 65?
THE PRESIDENT: In the program that I recommended,
that is correct.
QUESTION: What about the other people?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have to do what we can
in steps, and this is the area -- and there are about three
to four million of them so it is not an inconsequential
step, but it is a step that I think we could handle in the
first step of trying to do something affirmative.
One more. Somebody in the middle here.
Yes?
QUESTION: An all-volunteer service seems to be
coming under some question now. Some Members of Congress
have recently raised the additional question of whether
we should go back to some sort of draft system. Would you
comment on that, please?
THE PRESIDENT: I have long been an advocate, prior
to and still am, of the all-volunteer military force. I think
it has worked well. We are able today to satisfy the needs
of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines at a total
active duty strength of 2,100,000 by an all-volunteer military
force. I believe that in peacetime -- and we are at peace --
we can have and use -- and use effectively -- an all-volunteer
military force. It cuts down your training base -- you get
people to stay in longer, you don't have the same turnover,
you have to pay them more and you have to have better fringe
benefits, so to speak, but in the long run it is the right
way.
Now if we went up to four million on active duty
for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, as one individual
in this country is advocating, I guess, because he says the
Soviet Union has four million in their active duty -- therefore,
we ought to have four million -- now I don't agree with that.
But if you went from 2 million to 4 million, you would
undoubtedly have to have selective service or the draft.
I think we can have a first class Army, Navy,
Air Force and Marines and have it under an all-volunteer
concept. You will have a more alert, you will have a better
trained, you will have a career force and it will be a better
military organization.
Thank you.
END (AT 9:07 P.M. EST)