Pubdate: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 Source: Los Angeles Times (CA) Copyright: 2000 Los Angeles Times Contact: Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053 Fax: (213) 237-4712 Website: http://www.latimes.com/ Forum: http://www.latimes.com/home/discuss/ Author: Karen Gullo, Associated Press Writer WHITE HOUSE RIDICULES GOP DRUG PLAN WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration is taking aim at a GOP proposal that would provide private prescription drug coverage to low-income seniors, saying it would leave many elderly Americans still struggling to pay for their medicines. President Clinton's top economic and health advisers rebutted the "sketchy" GOP plan as inferior to the White House's own proposal, which would give prescription drug benefits to all Americans covered under Medicare. "Republicans need to move from just the talk to walking the walk," Gene Sperling, head of the president's National Economic Council, said at a White House briefing Thursday. The GOP plan, as outlined by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., calls for private health plans to offer drug benefits and government subsidies to pay drug costs for low-income seniors. While many of the details have yet to be worked out, Republicans said the plan would lower drug prices, give seniors more coverage choice and help the neediest Americans. "To us it still seems like a Swiss cheese plan with more holes than substance," Sperling said. Republicans said the administration was too quick to criticize a plan that has yet to be finalized. "They're prematurely trying to play politics," said John Feehery, Hastert's spokesman. GOP leaders are waiting for a formal estimate of the plan's costs by the Congressional Budget Office. "Once we complete those numbers we will give out more details. But we believe we have a comprehensive plan for seniors," Feehery said. Sperling said the GOP plan to provide subsidies to cover drug costs for seniors at the poverty level would leave out 6 million Medicare beneficiaries who have no drug coverage but have incomes above the poverty line -which he calculated at about $12,500 a year for singles and $16,875 per couple. The White House plan has an estimated cost of $195 billion over 10 years. It would provide drug benefits to all 39 million Medicare beneficiaries regardless of their income, paying up to $1,000 in drug costs annually for a $26 monthly premium. Republicans argue that aid should go to the neediest senior citizens and say they are opposed to a big government program that would displace private coverage that many seniors now have through retirement benefits or HMOs. It is not yet known what premiums would be under the GOP plan. Sperling predicted drug benefits provided by private insurers -a cornerstone of the GOP plan -would probably end up being too expensive for many Medicare beneficiaries. The coverage would work much like drug benefits under private supplemental policies such as Medigap, which charge high premiums that increase as policy holders age, he said. This aspect of the Republican plan "should be particularly a concern of older women" because the majority of people over age 85 are women. "Building a drug program off that model has very serious concerns," he said. He also questioned whether Republicans will commit enough money to a prescription drug program. GOP lawmakers have set aside $40 billion in their budget proposal for Medicare over the next five years. Hastert has said most of that would go toward the drug program but details have not been announced. Proposed GOP tax cuts of $792 billion over 10 years leave little room for investments in a drug program unless spending cuts are made in other programs, Sperling suggested. "Their tax cut is filling up so much room that it's very difficult for them to show how they can have a significant drug program without either reducing the tax cut or relying on discretionary cuts that are ... unrealistic," he said. Even while they took shots at the GOP plan, administration officials said they wanted to work with Republicans to come up with a compromise. They said they've been in discussions with members of a Senate Finance Committee, which has held a number of hearings on prescription drug coverage. But time is running out -only five months remain before lawmakers wrap up the session. "We believe it can evolve into something that really does achieve the principles we all share," said Chris Jennings, Clinton's chief health adviser. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea