Jeremiah Smith: “There it is, folks. It's revenue neutral. Let me talk about the premium issue, because this I believe is the most…”

“There it is, folks. It's revenue neutral. Let me talk about the premium issue, because this I believe is the most explosive political side of this. Seniors watch their budgets closely. If you try to sock them with a new premium, they will not be happy. Let me remind my colleagues what happened the last time we tried to slap new premiums on seniors. This picture is an incident that occurred when seniors who were angry with the enactment of the so-called Catastrophic Act assaulted Congressman Rostenkowski's car. Congressman Rostenkowski wrote the legislation which increased premiums on certain seniors. It would be a grave mistake to interpret seniors' desire for prescription drug coverage as a call for new higher premiums. It would also be a huge mistake to think that there is any need for such premiums. Let me show you how my plan compares with the Administration's plan as far as premiums and benefits. This chart shows that the Clinton plan's benefits do not even start until 2003, and the benefits are not fully effective until 2009. These premiums are just the new added government premiums. They do not count other premiums such as Medigap.”