The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.
The Superfund legislation set up a system of insurance premiums collected from the chemical industry to clean up toxic wastes. This new program may prove to be as far-reaching and important as any accomplishment of my administration. The reduction of the threat to America's health and safety from thousands of toxic-waste sites will continue to be an urgent but bitterly fought issue-another example for the conflict between the public welfare and the profits of a few private despoilers of our nation's environment.
The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now had it not been for Ted Kennedy's deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed in 1978 or '79.
The oil lobby, perhaps the most powerful lobby on earth, is almost matched by hospital owners and doctors.
