Bill Clinton: “It depends. The reimbursement rate will depend upon what plan the person joins who wants the mental health care. For…”

“It depends. The reimbursement rate will depend upon what plan the person joins who wants the mental health care. For example, each individual will choose what health plan they belong to. If you choose, for example, a preferred provider organization where a lot of doctors get together and offer to give services, they will prescribe what the reimbursement rate will be and what the cost of the plan will be. If a person joins a fee-for-service plan, then the reimbursement rate will be published on the front end, and it will be agreed to by the doctors in the beginning. But the Government won't set the rate. So there will be some more flexibility there. And let me also say, because I don't want to overpromise in this thing, I really believe it's important for us to cover mental health benefits. But we're not going to be able to cover the full range of mental health benefits because we don't know how to cost them out very well, as much as I think we should, until the year 2000. So there won't be unlimited visits, for example, until the year 2000. But we'll start with some hospitalization that's significant and a number of visits per year and then build up to full coverage over the rest of the decade. Mr. Koppel. Mr. President, we also have our financing plan here. We have to take some commercial breaks. We're going to take the first of them right now. We'll be back with President Clinton and our audience here in Tampa in just a moment. [At this point, the network took a commercial break. ] Mr. Koppel. If you take a look at the poll--I don't know if you can read--your eyes are probably better than mine. I can't read those results from here. Can we put it up on the big screen? Can we see the poll up there?”