Remarks made at the national symposium on public policies affecting chronically Ill children and their families

Thank you for your invitation to come here and spend a few minutes talking on the subject of chronically ill children and their families. As a Tennessean, I would certainly like to compliment those at Vanderbilt who have made this work possible. Indeed, I think this is a very important report that can and should serve as the basis for public policy changes. When the national government retreated from the old activist liberal approach to national problems, it became very difficult to contemplate government action on a broad range of topics because of a deep and abiding cynicism in the country about the ability of the government to organize and conduct any sort of project sensibly without wasting a lot of money and perhaps doing more harm than good. As a healthy result, it has become more important to lay the groundwork thoroughly and convince the public and the Congress that there is, in fact, a sensible, practical, and sound plan of action available to solve a carefully defined problem. The Social Security Commission report did that; the MX Commission, which is reporting today, may or may not do that. My point is, it is more and more important to have a lengthy and focused study that comes forward with a set of good, sound recommendations and clearly identifies the biggest part of the problem. As someone said about the Social Security Commission's work, everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but no one is entitled to his own facts. If you can pin down the facts and then work from that base, you have a much better chance of success. The facts are clear, and the facts have been pinned down by the Van

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