Sen. George Mitchell, majority leader of the...

Sen. George Mitchell, majority leader of the U.S. Senate, spoke Tuesday at the Sheraton Grande Hotel. His remarks were sponsored by the public issues forum, Town Hall of California. From his address:

On Health Care Reform

“Within the next year, Congress must act to restructure the financing and the delivery of health care to all Americans. We’re compelled to act. The current system won’t survive in its current form.

”. . . A distressingly large number of Americans have the most basic decisions of life dominated, indeed dictated, by health care insurance consideration; whether to marry, whether to have children, where to work, where to live. These fundamental decisions should not be dictated by health insurance concern, but for too many Americans, they are.

”. . . The plan that (President Clinton) has presented will assure security. Every American will have health insurance coverage that cannot be lost and cannot be taken away. . . . The act which has been introduced is the culmination of many months of work. . . . Developing and introducing a plan, however, was just the first step. The debate, which is now under way and which will continue over the next year will be lively. . . . There will be many differences and we have to confront them directly. We will do so in this debate. But I believe we can do it in a way that is constructive, positive and which recognizes that, in the end, everyone is going to have to compromise if we are to reach our common objective.”

On Violence in Society

“Integral to the debate on health care . . . is the problem of violent crime in our society and the enormous cost which it imposes on our health care system. . . . The problems we face, while there continue to be threats from abroad, are actually more serious from within. The greatest danger . . . is that in one important respect we are becoming two separate societies. One, where the norms of civility and legal behavior are respected. Another, where violence is the norm, where social cohesion and community life no longer exist.

“The threat of violence in our society is shaping and distorting and changing the lives of too many Americans. Those people fortunate enough to have the resources have privately guarded enclaves to live in. People who don’t have those kinds of resources must in turn limit their own mobility. They don’t go to certain neighborhoods. They don’t walk on certain streets. They don’t let their kids play in certain areas.

“Our national response must include two steps: First, an immediate reply to criminal acts to protect law-abiding people from violent predators. And second, people in our communities all across the country must acknowledge that they must combat the local conditions that produce crime.

”. . . If Americans don’t act within their communities against crime, what we in the Congress do will not ultimately alter conditions here in Los Angeles or any place else.”

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