Living History (30 page)

I loved seeing her and Maurice together. Charming, smart and well read, he radiated love, respect and concern for her, as well as delight in her company. They made each other laugh, one of my criteria for any relationship.

Jackie and Maurice invited us to go sailing on Maurice’s yacht with Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and her husband, Ed Schlossberg, Ted and Vicky Kennedy and Ann and Vernon Jordan. Caroline is one of the few people in the world who can understand Chelsea’s unique experiences, and from that visit onward, she became a perceptive friend and role model for my daughter. Ted Kennedy, Caroline’s uncle and the paterfamilias of the Kennedy clan, is one of the most effective Senators who has ever served our country and is also an expert sailor. He kept up a running commentary about pirates and naval battles, while his intelligent, effervescent wife, Vicky, provided additional color.

We motored out of Menemsha Harbor on a glorious, sunny day and anchored next to a small island to go swimming before lunch. I went below to put on my bathing suit, and by the time I came back up on deck, Jackie, Ted and Bill were already in the water. Caroline and Chelsea had climbed up to a platform about forty feet above the water. As I looked up, they jumped together and landed in the ocean with a splash.

They came up laughing and swam back to the boat for another jump.

Chelsea said, “Come on, Mom, try it!”

Of course, Ted and Bill started yelling, “Yeah, give it a try―give it a try!” For reasons that escape me to this day, I said okay. I am not all that athletic anymore, but the next thing I knew I was following Caroline and Chelsea up a narrow little ladder to get to the top. By now I was thinking, “How did I get myself into this?” As soon as Caroline and Chelsea reached the platform-boom! Off they went again. Now perched up there alone, looking down at the tiny figures below me treading water, I listened to their shouts, “Come on, come on! Jump!”

Then I heard Jackie’s voice rising above the rest: “Don’t do it, Hillary! Don’t let them talk you into it. Don’t do it!”

I thought to myself, “Now there is the voice of reason and experience.” I’m sure that there were countless times when Jackie said, “No, I just won’t do that.” She knew exactly what was going through my mind, and she came to my rescue.

“You know, you’re right!” I shouted back.

Slowly I climbed down with as much dignity as I could summon. Then I got into the water and went for a swim with my friend Jackie.

When we returned to Washington a week before Labor Day with an important budget victory under the Administration’s belt, it was time for the White House to focus fulltime on the health care initiative. Or so I hoped. Bill’s one-hundred-day target had long since passed, the task force had disbanded at the end of May, and health care had been relegated to the sidelines for months so that the President and his economic and legislative teams could focus on the deficit reduction package. During the summer I had phoned members of Congress, working hard to help Bill pass his economic program, the key to everything he hoped to achieve for the country.

But even with the crucial budget victory behind us, health care still had to compete with other legislative priorities. Since the beginning of the Administration, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen had warned about the timetable for health care, skeptical that it could be passed in less than two years. By late August, Bentsen, Secretary of State Warren Christopher and economic adviser Bob Rubin were adamant about postponing health care reform and moving forward with the North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA. They believed that free trade was also critical to the nation’s economic recovery and NAFT’A warranted immediate action. Creating a free trade zone in North America―the largest free trade zone in the world―would expand U.S. exports, create jobs and ensure that our economy was reaping the benefits, not the burdens, of globalization.

Although unpopular with labor unions, expanding trade opportunities was an important administration goal. The question was whether the White House could focus its energies on two legislative campaigns at once. I argued that we could and that postponing health care would further weaken its chances. But it was Bill’s decision, and because NAFTA faced a legislative deadline, he concluded that it had to be addressed first.

He was also particularly committed to strengthening relations with our closest neighbor to the south. Not only was Mexico the ancestral home of millions of Mexican-Americans, it was undergoing profound political and economic changes that had the potential to ripple across Latin America. Bill wanted to support President Ernesto Zedillo, an economist by training, who was transforming the national government from a one-party political system to a multiparty democracy that would tackle longtime problems of poverty and corruption as well as cross-border concerns like immigration, drugs and trade.

Once again, health care would have to wait. Nonetheless, Ira and I and a cadre of health care staffers continued to lay the groundwork for a bill that would deliver quality, affordable health care to all Americans. Bill’s dramatic legislative victories over the summer made us optimistic about our chances. We kept reminding ourselves that reform was not just about complex public policies, but about people’s lives, and in my quest for solutions, many of those lives touched my own.

While Bill and his advisers were hammering out a policy to jumpstart the economy, I had been traveling around the country listening to Americans talk about the hardships of coping with the rising medical costs, inequitable treatment and bureaucratic quagmires they encountered every day. From Louisiana to Montana, and from Florida to Vermont, my travels reinforced my belief that the existing health system could be more efficient and less costly while ensuring that every American who needed medical attention received it.

I spoke to people who temporarily lost their coverage because they switched jobs―which was happening to an average of two million workers each month. I met men and women who discovered they couldn’t get insurance if they had “a preexisting condition”

like cancer or diabetes that was already diagnosed and part of their medical history.

Some elderly Americans living on fixed incomes told me they were forced to choose between paying the rent or buying prescription drugs. My father’s hospitalization taught me that even with the best care and support, losing someone you love is indescribably painful.

I couldn’t bear thinking how much harder it would be if the loss were avoidable.

I also met Americans who made my heart soar with hope. One day when I went to speak to health care reformers on Capitol Hill, I noticed a little boy in the front row sitting in a wheelchair. He had the most beautiful smile on his sweet face, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. Just before I spoke, I went over to him. When I bent down to say hello, he threw his arms around my neck. I picked him up and discovered that he wore a full body brace that must have weighed forty pounds. I addressed the audience, holding him in my arms. That was my introduction to Ryan Moore, a seven-year-old from South Sioux City, Nebraska, who had been born with a rare form of dwarfism. His family constantly battled with their insurance company to pay for the multiple surgeries and treatments he needed. Ryan’s condition stunted his body’s growth, but it didn’t interfere with his positive attitude. He so endeared himself to me and my staff that Melanne hung a giant photo of him on the wall in the Hillaryland offices. Stories like Ryan’s kept our eyes on the prize throughout our struggle to bring health care coverage to all Americans, and his courage and hope continue to inspire me today. Ryan is now in high school and dreams of becoming a sportscaster.

By early September, Bill was also focused on preparations for the upcoming visit of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and the signing of a new Middle East peace accord. The historic meeting that took place on the White House South Lawn on September 13, 1993, was the result of months of negotiations in Oslo, Norway, and the agreement was known as the Oslo Accords. It was important to establish our government’s support for the agreement because the United States is the only country that could push both sides to actually implement the agreement’s terms and be trusted by Israel to protect its security. The people of the Middle East and the world would also see Prime Minister Rabin and Chairman Arafat personally commit to what their representatives had negotiated.

I had first met Yitzhak and Leah Rabin earlier that spring when they paid a courtesy call at the White House. The Prime Minister, a man of medium height, did nothing to demand attention, but his quiet dignity and intensity drew me―and so many others―to him. He created an aura of strength; this was a man who made me feel safe. Leah, a striking, dark-haired woman with piercing blue eyes, exuded energy and intelligence. She was also well read, observant and knowledgeable about the arts. Now, on this second visit with me at the White House, she noticed where I had rehung some paintings from the White House art collection. Leah was outspoken, sharing her opinions about personalities and events with blunt remarks that quickly endeared her to me. Both Rabins were realistic about the challenges that lay ahead for Israel. They believed they had no choice but to try to achieve a secure future for their nation through negotiations with their sworn enemies.

Their attitude called to mind the old saying “Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”

That was also Bill’s and my assessment.

On that auspicious day, Bill persuaded Yitzhak to shake hands with Arafat as a tangible sign of their commitment to the peace plan. Rabin agreed, as long as there would be no kissing, a common Arab custom. Before the ceremony, Bill and Yitzhak engaged in a hilarious rehearsal of the handshake, with Bill pretending to be Arafat as they practiced a complicated maneuver that would prevent the Palestinian leader from drawing too close.

The handshake and the agreement, which seemed to offer such hope, were seen by some Israelis and Arabs as a rebuke to their political interests and religious beliefs, which later led to violence and Rabin’s tragic assassination. But on that perfect afternoon―

under bright warm sunlight that seemed to bestow God’s blessing―I hoped only for the best and determined to help in any way I could to support Israel’s courageous decision to take this risk for a lasting and secure peace.

Even as he worked on these varied and pressing issues, Bill scheduled a televised primetime address to Congress on September 22 to outline the health care plan. Following that, I was slated to testify be fore the five congressional committees that would consider health care legislation, which we hoped would be introduced in early October.

It was an ambitious September schedule, and we couldn’t afford more roadblocks. Although the bill itself was not finished, Bill, Ira and I wanted to acquaint Democratic members with it before Bill’s big speech so that they would understand the reasoning behind our decisions. But the raw numbers in the bill needed to be calculated and confirmed by budget experts, and that took several weeks longer than anticipated. Instead of circulating an unfinished document, we set up a “reading room” where Democratic staffers could look at the proposal with the understanding that the figures were likely to change.

The content of the document was leaked to news organizations, and the ensuing stories left many in Congress thinking that this draft was the final bill. Already wary of health care reform, Senator Moynihan decried the whole enterprise, saying it was based on “fantasy”

numbers.

Proponents and opponents of reform had begun organizing their own campaigns to influence the outcome. Groups representing consumers, families, workers, the elderly, children’s hospitals and pediatricians were, for the most part, lining up in favor of reform.

But business groups, particularly small business, pharmaceuticals and the insurance giants had long viewed reform as a threat. Doctors, too, objected to specific elements of the plan.

It didn’t take long to see how well organized and well financed the opposition was. In early September, the Health Insurance Association of America, a powerful interest group representing the nation’s insurance companies, launched television advertisements designed to discredit reform. The ads featured a couple at a kitchen table, reviewing their medical bills, worrying aloud that the government was going to force them to sign up for a new health care plan they didn’t want. “Things are changing and not all for the better.

The government may force us to pick from a few health care plans designed by government bureaucrats,” the announcer intoned. It was false and misleading advertising, but it was a clever scare tactic that had the desired effect.

On September 20, two days before Bill was to unveil his health care plan to Congress and the nation, he asked me to look at the speech draft he had just received from the speechwriting team. Over the years, Bill and I have always relied on each other as sounding boards. We also recruit each other as editors whenever we are working on a big speech or any important writing. It was a Sunday afternoon, and I settled into an oversize chair in one of my favorite rooms on the top floor of the White House―the Solarium―

where we often retreated to relax, play cards, watch television and feel like a regular family. Quickly thumbing through the pages of the speech, I could see that it wasn’t ready―and Bill was supposed to deliver it in just over forty-eight hours. Panic set in. I picked up the phone and asked the White House operator to call Maggie. Always calm in a storm, she glanced at the speech and quickly called a meeting of top health care advisers and speechwriters for that evening. Over bowls of nachos and guacamole, Bill and I and about a dozen staffers sat in the Solarium and tossed around themes for the speech. I suggested that health care reform was pan of the American journey, an apt metaphor because in Bill’s view, this was our generation’s chance to answer a call on behalf of future generations. We settled on the journey theme, and with a combined sense of urgency and relief, we handed a rough draft back to the speechwriters. With constant editing and rewriting from Bill, they wrestled the text into shape for Tuesday night’s appearance.