Bill Clinton: “Okay. Then, here's the short answer. The seven, you will have to provide a family plan under mine; the three which have…”

“Okay. Then, here's the short answer. The seven, you will have to provide a family plan under mine; the three which have spouses at work, they will be able to decide whether you or the other employer, they'll take the children's coverage, because they'll pay more, too, keep in mind. Now, because you are a small business person with under 50 employees, you will be eligible for a discount that could take your premiums as low as 3.5 percent of payroll, even for the family coverage. So in all probability, you will be paying about what you're paying now, even though you will be covering seven families at a minimum, in addition to the seven employees. Because, the way we set this up--in other words, we understand, and let me go back a second--we went out and interviewed hundreds of small businesses. And my Small Business Administrator took the lead in this. He's from North Carolina, and he's spent the last 20 years of his life starting small businesses. So we were in a real dilemma here, because small businesses who cover their employees have premiums going up at roughly twice the rate that other people's premiums are going up. There's a 35 percent difference now between small business premiums and big business premiums. And I don't know what you cover, but basically that's the rule. One-third of the small businesses in America, according to a representative poll recently, said they were going to drop all their coverage if somebody didn't do something to stop the rate of cost increase. So the only way to stop the rate of cost increase is to get everybody covered, and then put them in these big groups, so you can have the same market forces working for you that big businesses do. But it's not fair for me to put you out of business, because small businesses are also creating most of the new jobs in America. So that's why we've got the discount system. Part of what we're going to do with the money we're going to raise is to fund a discount system for people with fewer than 50 employees, so you won't have to pay the 7.9 percent of payroll, and you may pay as little as 3.5 percent. In all probability, because you only have 10 employees, you'll pay almost exactly what you do now, and you'll get more coverage for it. Mr. Koppel. Let me just ask you quickly, though. Right now, paying 4 percent on 10 people, you're saying 3.5 percent. He would then have to pay the 3.5 percent on all the dependents, other than the three who are working.”