John Kerry on NAFTA and Health Care at the AFL-CIO Forum!

AFL-CIO Holds Democratic Primary Presidential Forum
FDCH E-Media
Wednesday, August 6, 2003; 12:18 AM

B. EDWARDS: Candidates, five of you on this stage voted in Congress for the World Trade Organization. Four of you voted for NAFTA, which the Bush administration wants to expand into a Fair Trade for the Americas Region for all of the Western Hemisphere.

Senator Kerry, if it were before you now in the U.S. Senate, yea or nay on the Fair Trade for America?

KERRY: If it were before me today, I would vote against it, because it doesn't have environmental or labor standards protections in it. But let me just make it clear that if we're going to create jobs for Americans, which we all want to do, the first thing we have to do is make sure that George W. Bush loses his.

(APPLAUSE)

That is step number one. Number two, we need to stop a series of things from happening. We need to stop the assault on workers that is taking place by the effort to change the Overtime Act, we need to stop companies like WorldCom that engage in fraud from getting government contracts, we need to make sure ...

(APPLAUSE)

... we need to make sure that chief executives of companies like Enron go to jail, which is where they belong for ripping the retirement accounts.

(APPLAUSE)

And we should not be opening firehouses in Baghdad and shutting them in New York City, or in Los Angeles, or other places.

(APPLAUSE)

I want, I want a fairness back in our economy, and I want a trade relationship that makes sense. Under Bill Clinton, we created 23 million new jobs.

We had trade, but we began to move towards labor and environment as part of trade. When I'm president of the United States, no trade agreement will ever be signed that has a rush to the bottom. We will have labor, environment standards, and we will fight for the rights of working people in this country to be able to do better.

B. EDWARDS: Senator Kerry, your health care plan would create a premium rebate pool to help employer-based health care plans deal with certain high-cost health cases above $50,000. How much of a savings would this actually create for the average worker who relies on employer provided health insurance?

KERRY: About $1,000-per-family premium that's paid.

Let me explain. We have been waiting 40 years for health care in the United States of America. We've been fighting about this time and again. I believe that America deserves a bigger, bolder, more realistic vision than the one that Joe just described to you.

And I have offered a plan that I am proud to say to you has been judged by National Journal's independent group of experts who analyzed all of our plans. My plan was judged to be the most feasible and the best plan with the most coverage of all of them in achieving the goals of health care in America.

I am going to offer every single American the opportunity and the capacity to be able to buy into the same health care plan that the president and senators and congressman give themselves thanks to you. If it's good enough for us, it's good enough for everybody in America.

(APPLAUSE)

But more importantly, the premium plan rebate that we just heard--163 million Americans get their health care in the work place, most of you. But every time you go to the bargaining table, your entire wage increase goes to health care. And we need to take that back.

I will pay for every catastrophic case in the system $50,000 or more.

Your premiums will never again be measured by the most expensive health care cases. The federal government will pay for it by taking back the tax cut George Bush gave the wealthiest Americans.
B. EDWARDS: Thank you, Senator.

(APPLAUSE)

KERRY: And we will have health care, $1,000 rebate. We will cover every child in America. We will cover 75 percent of the COBRA costs, and we will guarantee that there will be a tax savings 10 times what George Bush gives the average American.

B. EDWARDS: Thank you, Senator.