*EPF401 01/16/2003
Transcript: White House Briefing, January 16
(Bush visit to Pennsylvania/medical liability reform, online tax filing, affirmative action case, Martin Luther King birthday, North Korea, Iraq) (2530)

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer briefed.

Following is the transcript of the briefing:

(begin transcript)

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary (Scranton, Pennsylvania)
January 16, 2003

PRESS GAGGLE WITH ARI FLEISCHER

Aboard Air Force One En Route Scranton, Pennsylvania
9:51 A.M. EST

MR. FLEISCHER: All right, buenos matinas. I'd like to begin with the announcement that, unless I'm incorrect, this is Rachael's last flight on Air Force One, because Rachael will soon be going to Homeland Security. So I just want to let the record show we will miss Rachael. Hope you enjoy today's flight. You'll be going up to pilot on the way back as a special treat.

The President today will arrive into Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Airport and then depart for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton whoops and will then depart for the Scranton Mercy Hospital, where he will participate in a roundtable on medical liability reform, and then make a speech, where he will announce a proposal to help relieve the inequities in our system that are denying people the health care they deserve as a result of medical liability laws that have led to a crisis.

The President will call on the Congress to act quickly to pass medical liability reform. Because of excess medical malpractice litigation, Pennsylvania physicians are leaving the practices and communities and are facing reductions in access to care. Many areas are without physicians who specialize in obstetrics, gynecology and other OB/GYN practices, will stop delivering babies because of skyrocketing malpractice rates. In the last four years, at least seven insurance companies have ceased offering medical malpractice insurance in Pennsylvania due to cost of litigation and excess awards.

Let me describe to you two people who will be joining the President at his roundtable. Dr. Debra DeAngelo from Scranton -- Dr. DeAngelo and her husband are both anesthesiologists who were born and raised in northeast Pennsylvania. They developed a robust pain management practice in the Scranton area, serving over 2,000 patients in Pennsylvania and New York. Because of the liability crisis and medical liability insurance they can no longer afford, they are closing their clinic, which employs 10 people, and moving to Hershey, Pennsylvania, where they have both been offered jobs at the Hershey Medical Center. The hospital will provide and pay for their medical liability insurance.

She strongly believes only a national solution, the type of reforms that the President will talk about, like those enacted in California, will curtail the crisis in Pennsylvania.

Another doctor is Denise Baker. She is from Bradenton, Florida. She is an OB/GYN who, last September stopped delivering babies because her medical liability insurance costs exceeded her salary. For many of her patients who were expecting babies, this decision was devastating and forced them to complete their pregnancies with another doctor. She also had to fire several of her employees because of escalating costs. She is concerned about the lack of access to care and how the crisis is affecting her specialty.

Then the President will return to the White House. And I have one more announcement related to today, and then I will take your questions.

Last year, if you remember, the President proposed free online tax filing as one of the E-government initiatives. Today, the Treasury Department, Office of Management and Budget and Internal Revenue Service will launch a new web site featuring a public/private partnership that will allow most taxpayers in America to prepare and file their taxes on line for free. Tens of millions of Americans will benefit from this free online filing service. And it's easy, it's fast, it's secure, and it allows filers to get refunds in half the time while serving taxpayers time saving taxpayers time and the IRS money. People can log on to www.irs.gov and find this new service to assist taxpayers in making their way through very complicated and expensive tax filing procedures.

Q: And can they file through this site itself?

MR. FLEISCHER: Yes. Eligible taxpayers will be able to prepare and file their federal income tax returns using software provided by -- through this new service.

Q: Has the administration submitted the brief in the affirmative action case?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, the deadline is midnight tonight and it's still being drafted.

Q: -- in draft?

MR. FLEISCHER: Of course. So it could be any time between now and midnight tonight.

Q: Can you give us any tighter timetable than that?

MR. FLEISCHER: Not right now. I mean, this really is just something, lawyers are doing what lawyers do and are working on the exact language. I can't rule out that it will push the deadline; it might.

Q: Probably might

MR. FLEISCHER: I don't know. I can't rule out the possibility that it will happen closer to the deadline.

Q: Are you asking the Court to push back the deadline?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, no, I'm saying that it will come out closer to midnight than closer to 10:00 a.m., for example. That's what I mean by it may push the deadline.

Q: Just out of curiosity, did the White House or the President know yesterday it was MLK's birthday? Was that tied to the birthday at all?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, the announcement was not tied to the birthday. The deadline is the deadline. The deadline was set by the Court at the time that they decided to take the case. The administration and all parties to this matter act in accordance with the timetable set up by the Court.

Q: Do you consider North Korea's rhetoric an official rejection of a U.S. offer to talk?

MR. FLEISCHER: We continue to view it as another reason where North Korea continues to isolate itself from Japan, China, the United States, South Korea and Russia.

Q: Have they ruled out in your mind talks? Will there be no talks, given the rhetoric they've come back with?

MR. FLEISCHER: I'll just reiterate, the President has said the United States will talk to North Korea about dismantlement of their programs. North Korea's seeming rejection of the offer to talk means North Korea further isolates itself from the rest of the world, but only harms the people of North Korea.

Q: Is the President confident that the March 27th U.N. inspector report, that that date would get cancelled? And is he going to decide in the next couple weeks about whether or not to go to war?

MR. FLEISCHER: -- events will dictate the timetable. And the President has not made any decisions about whether we go or will not go to war. That decision will ultimately be made by Saddam Hussein in terms of whether he starts to comply or indeed complies with the inspections, under the inspectors. After all, their job is more than to inspect, it's to verify disarmament, and they've been given very little to verify because Saddam Hussein has not cooperated with them in showing that he has disarmed. So the terms of Resolution 1441 will continue to be followed, and that sets the timetable of January 27th as an important date. Beyond that, events will dictate timetables.

Q: Is Blix following everything in 1441, or is he going it on his own a bit?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, he has the right under 1441 to implement the resolution. As you know, the United States has made no secret of the fact that we believe that the interviews with Iraqi scientists out of the country, in the company of their family members, and out of eyeshot and earshot -- out of eyesight and earshot of Iraqi minders is a very important way to ascertain what Saddam Hussein is doing and whether he indeed has disarmed. And we believe that's a very effective procedure, because it's proved in the past to be the most effective procedure in finding out what the truth is.

Q: Why are you asking the U.N. to scrap this inspection timetable, stretching into the summer?

MR. FLEISCHER: Because as I mentioned earlier, one, we'll see what happens in terms of timetables -- the events will dictate that. But 1441 lays out the current procedures. The previous resolution, which was number 1284, was written in 1999 and was based on the assumption that Iraq would cooperate and comply, and at the end of the day have sanctions removed. And 1441, which was, of course, enacted after witnessing Iraq's failure to cooperate and failure to comply, set out a different series of times and procedures; 1441 is immediately relevant. If Iraq had complied, other factors could have been taken into account; 1441 is relevant to the reality of today.

Q: On today's event, the Democrats are basically saying you're in the pocket of the insurance companies. How do you respond to that?

MR. FLEISCHER: At a time when moms have to change doctors in order to deliver their babies, that type of division is not helpful to people who need health care. This is about health care and serving families who want to have medical treatment. So the President won't be distracted by partisan sniping. He's going to be focused on bringing solutions to a health care crisis.

Q: There were some rumors yesterday the White House was backing off this provision or that -- I don't know the specifics -- is the proposal the President is airing today precisely the one we heard in July? Are there any changes?

MR. FLEISCHER: Have the factsheets been distributed?

Q: I haven't had a chance to compare the two.

MR. FLEISCHER: It's a very plain -- it's a cap on non-economic damages at $250,000, reasonable caps on punitive damages. I'd have to go back, Scott, to do a side-by-side of July to answer with precision, but I have not been led to believe there are any differences.

Q: Ari, how would this mesh with the sort of case that came out on Monday at a sister hospital in Wilkes-Barre where there was a $7 million settlement in a death of a patient?

MR. FLEISCHER: I can't speak -- it would be inappropriate for anybody to speak to any one individual case without having full knowledge of all facts and external considerations. But clearly, people have a right to bring cases to court and will always have that right. The problem is the right is being abused to the point where doctors have stopped providing care to their patients. It's a question of where do you set the balance. And the current system has led to an unbalance in which families are suffering and patients are being denied the care they need.

That's what the President is trying to set straight. And that's why this is not just a crisis in Scranton, it's a crisis increasingly being felt across the country. And the President hopes that people will want to work with him to find a solution. Both parties have something at stake here; both parties need to work together.

Q: I guess it's, how do you decide that $250,000 is a just amount when there are cases where, clearly, a higher number might be appropriate?

MR. FLEISCHER: Keep in mind that the three categories of reward in court cases. There's one for actual losses, so that if somebody loses their job and cannot work as a result of a medical problem and they're out of work for 12 months and they suffer calculatable cost. This has nothing to do with that area of law. They can receive 100 percent full reimbursement for it.

What's happened, though, beyond that in the secondary, being non-economic damages, which typically is referred to as pain and suffering, the sky has become the limit. And people, particularly some lawyers, are engaging in predatory practices that are akin to turning medical issues into lotteries for patients, whereby they sue, seeking to win rewards far in excess of anything the patient has suffered. And that's what's driving doctors out of business and denying people health care. That's why, as other states have done, the President supports a federal cap on the level of non-economic damages.

But people would still be entitled to full reimbursement for the economic losses they incur. It's the non-economic losses that the President proposed to cap. And then the punitive damages, as well. It's the punitive damages and non-economic damages that have created the health care crisis in America, in the area of medical liability.

Q: What's the mechanics of the release of the brief, straight out of Justice, out of the White House?

MR. FLEISCHER: Yes, as always, Justice.

Q: Anything else going on?

MR. FLEISCHER: Them's the highlights for today.

Q: Were you pleased that the inspectors went and visited the two scientists today?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, again, I will always refrain from doing the play-by-play on what the inspectors are doing, hour by hour. But, clearly, when you look at how Saddam Hussein has lied and deceived the world before, one of the best, most effective ways to verify whether Iraq has arms or not is to talk to the people involved in the arms program. It's easy for Saddam Hussein to hide his weapons of mass destruction in a country as large as Iraq. It is harder for him to stop people with something they want to say from saying it. He does that by using minders, by putting them in the room with the inspectors when they have those conversations.

So, therefore, history has shown that the most effective way -- one of the most effective ways to verify disarmament is to talk to the people involved in the programs, and to do so in a way that protects their physical health and safety. Because if Saddam Hussein catches anybody spilling the beans, he has a history of killing them. And that's why the U.N. resolution explicitly authorized the right of the inspectors to talk out of the country with a scientist involved in a weapons program in the company of their families, and outside the watch of the Iraqi minders.

Q: Ari, are you working to stop a second resolution from being put forth in the Security Council that would authorize military action?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, it's exactly what I said yesterday, that we're going to continue to consult. And I think there's a division among different nations about whether one is necessary or not. The commitment that the President made was to consult.

Q: But your feeling is you don't need a second resolution?

MR. FLEISCHER: The commitment the President made was to consult, and he will keep that commitment. But clearly, the U.N. has already spoken once, and powerfully so.

Q: What about a second report in March? Do you want to try to take some kind of -- make some kind of decision before that? Is that to late for you?

MR. FLEISCHER: We already addressed that. That was the conversation about 1441 versus 1286.

Q: -- we always have a hard time hearing.

MR. FLEISCHER: Anything else? All right, thank you.

(end transcript)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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