Health Care: Increasing Access for Millions of Americans

Protected Medicare - in the 1997 Balanced Budget, protected, modernized and extended the Medicare Trust Fund while offering new options for patient choice and preventive care. Proposed a plan to reform and modernize Medicare's benefits, including an optional prescription drug benefit that is affordable and available to all beneficiaries.

Extended the Life of the Medicare Trust Fund Until 2015. At the beginning of the Clinton-Gore Administration, Medicare was expected to run out of money in 1999.

Enacted Single Largest Investment in Health Care for Children since 1965 -- the $24 billion Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) will provide health care coverage for up to five million children.

Passed Meaningful Health Insurance Reform -- signed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act which limits exclusions for pre-existing conditions, makes coverage portable and helps individuals who lose jobs maintain coverage. As many as 25 million people will benefit from this law.

Working to Enact a Strong, Enforceable Patients' Bill of Rights for All Americans - leading by example, the President directed all federal agencies to ensure that their employees and beneficiaries have the benefits and rights guaranteed under the President's proposed Patients' Bill of Rights.

Raised Immunization Rates to All Time High -- 90 percent of toddlers in 1996, 1997 and 1998 received the most critical doses of each of the routinely recommended vaccines, surpassing the President's 1993 goal. Childhood immunization coverage rates in 1998 were the highest ever recorded.

Ensuring Safe Food for America's Families -- issued new standards to reduce and prevent contamination of meat, poultry, and seafood; issued a presidential directive to prevent the importation of unsafe foods; signed the Food Quality Protection Act with special safeguards for kids; issued new regulations that improve the safety of fruit and vegetable juices; and created a President's Council on Food Safety to develop a comprehensive food safety strategic plan for federal agencies.

Last Updated December 1999

The Clinton-Gore Economic Record

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