Judd Gregg: “first, I appreciate the Senator from Florida being concise in presenting this amendment. I thank him for that and for…”

“first, I appreciate the Senator from Florida being concise in presenting this amendment. I thank him for that and for sticking with the time as was represented. It was appropriate and generous of him. The amendment, obviously, has an impact on the deficit. It would expand it. As a practical matter, it really has to be put in the context of the overall Medicare adjustments in this bill and in other bills because under the new drug program, seniors will actually see a significant discount. They will save about $5 on their prescription drugs over what was expected. The Part B premium increase which will occur as a result of this bill will be $1.60. It seems more than reasonable to have structured an agreement where we will essentially allow patients to see doctors because we will be giving them the opportunity to see doctors because the doctors will actually participate in the system, whereas they might well opt out if we cut their pay by 4.3 percent. Under this bill, of course, we avoid that because the Finance Committee has put together a package which allows us to basically hold doctors harmless. It is reasonable that seniors--we are not talking about low-income seniors here because their entire Part B premium is picked up by the Government. We are talking about middle and high income.…”