Bill Clinton: “Maybe, but what I would like to emphasize is we're the only people who have a plan. It's very easy for everybody else to…”

“Maybe, but what I would like to emphasize is we're the only people who have a plan. It's very easy for everybody else to sit up in the peanut gallery. This is a very complex thing. And keep in mind, you're talking about small amounts of money, is this person going to pay $6 more a month or $60 less a month, trying to calculate how it would go if this plan would be passed just as it is. Now, let me say what was wrong with the early figures, where they said 40 percent of the people with insurance would pay more. Here's what was wrong with them, why they were too high. Of the people who have insurance today, we now think that 70 percent will pay the same or less for the same or better benefits. Why did they say 60 before? Because they neglected to calculate this: A lot of people who have insurance don't really have it. That is, they have $5,000 deductibles, so they're paying every year. They just may not be paying it in their insurance premium. So they went back and calculated based on what we now know about how much out-of-pocket people pay. You have $2,500, $3,000, $5,000 deductible. That is something they neglected to think about. So now who will pay more under this, who has insurance already? People who have essentially catastrophic policies, that have very limited benefits, and young, single workers will pay more because if they pay more it will enable us to have what's called community rating, so that if a working family--middle-aged working family--with a sick child can still get insurance at an affordable cost. And all young workers who don't have insurance will be brought into the insurance system, and even they will get something for it. That is, what they get for it is knowing their insurance can ever be taken away. There will be a floor. Finally, let me say this: If you look at the experience of the last 12 years when health costs really started to take off, and then you think about what it will be like 5 years from now, 100 percent of the American people will pay more 5 years from now than the rate of inflation if we don't do something. In other words, at least what we're trying to do will lower the rate of increase for all the American people. So within 5 years everybody will be better off, I believe. Mr. Brokaw. Mr. President, no one disagrees with the idea that you have engaged the country in a debate about health care which is long overdue. But the fact is that you want to add 37 million people to the insurance pool. There are new technologies coming on board all the time that cost a lot more money. You're willing to pick up the early retirement benefits for corporations. You've added mental health and free prescriptions. It seems to a lot of folks that you ought to be going slower and that you ought to accept kind of phased-in universal health care coverage in 5 years. Would that be acceptable to you?”