Tobacco Documents Online

Copyright 1993 American Broadcasting Companies. Inc., All rights reserved. ' ABC NEWS SHOW: WORLD NEWS TONIGHT WITH PETER JENNINGS SEPTEMBER 21. 1993 LENGTH: 3966 words BODY: ANNOUNCER: From ABC, this is World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, reporting tonight from Tennessee. PETER JENNINGS: Now to our coverage of health care, which is the reason we came to Nashville, to take acloser look at the impact of what is really a social! revolution. It is tomorrow that President Clinton will make his formal presentation to Congress. But because so much of the plan has been revealed, if not unveiled, there is already some serious debate about whether the Clinton team has got its numbers right and can actually pay for all of this. Here's ABC's Brit Hume. BRIT HUME: Everyone from the President down was trying today to head off a budding controversy over whether the administratiori s numbers add up. Critics :ay it's wildly optimistic for the White House to claim the plan will cut the deficit. During a briefing today for radio talk show hosts, Mr. Clinton defended: his estimates. PRES. BILL CLINTON: I want you to understand that we really have killed ourselves, at least to get the arithmetic right, to give people an honest starting point, a common ground to start from so that we can have the arguments over policy. BRIT HUME: Almost the entire Clinton economic team was sent out to argue the accuracy of the administration's estimates, especially its claims of how the plan will reduce the deficit. The White House says it will save $238 billion over five years by restraining the growth of Medicare and Medicaid, and it says it will generate roughly $105 billion in revenue from new taxes on cigarettes and alcohol. And that, it says, will end up allowing a $91 billion cut in the LEON PANETTA, DIRECTOR. OMB: If, in fact, we can get all of these elements passed by the Congress, then we believe we can hit these numbers. BRIT HUME: The problem with those numbers is not that the administration hasn't tried to make them as accurate as possible - no doubt it has. The problem is the inherent imprecision in estimating how anything as massive as the U.S. health care economy will react to policies never before tried. Brit Hume, ABC News, the White House. PETER JENNINGS: Still on the subject of where the money will come from, the President says that $105 billion, as Brit reported, will be raised through what everyone calls "sin taxes," which in the case of health care leads right to cigarettes. Much of the public appears to think that cigarette smokers should really be pressured. But the guessing is that 75 cents more a pack is

all that they'll have to pay. Here's ABC's Jim Angle. JIM ANGLE: When California raised its cigarette tax by 25 cents a pack back in 1989, it dedicated 20 percent of the revenues to an anti- tobacco campaign. ACTOR: [Public Awareness Commercial] Here's a picture of Lisa before she started smoking. Here she is now. JIM ANGLE: Over three and a half years, public-awareness programs helped cut cigarette consumption by 8.5 percent. Though California wanted new revenues, it also wanted to discourage smoking. Now Massachusetts is following suit. It will spend $52 million - a fourth of its recent tax increase - for anti-smoking programs. Such efforts are important because a tax increase alone isn't enough to reduce smoking. DR. GREGORY CON'NOLLY, MASSACHUSETTS DEPT. OF PUBLIC HEALTH: You get an initial drop in consumption from the tax increase, but that you lose over time unless vou come back in with a hard-hitting campaign. JIM ANGLE: Such as this one in California. While some smokers quit when taxes ,o up. others need more persuasion: ANTI-SMOKING ADVOCATE: Cigarette smoking is as bad as crack. JIM ANGLE: But redemption isn't the goal of the administration; it's more interested in revenue and in getting the support of tobacco -state lawmakers. The White House isn't setting aside a single penny from the new tax for anti-smoking efforts. Health advocates say that's a mistake. STANTON GLANTZ, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN FRANCISCO: They would be absolute idiots to not include a reasonable tobacco -control campaign as a component of their overall health care proposal. JIM ANGLE: But for now the administration is only after the tax money, passing up the chance to actively discourage smoking and save tens of billions in future medical costs. Jim Angle, ABC News, Washington. PETER JENNINGS: On another subject, a serious setback for President Clinton today. who wants Congress to approve the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA. The powerful Democratic leader of the House, Richard Gephardt, said today that he is going to vote against it.We will be back in just a moment. But before we continue in depth from Nashville, a brief fact file on how this plan will affect some Americans. It was America's working poor who first attracted the Clintons' attention. Most of them have no health insurance. They would under the Clinton plan. And if they can't afford to pay even 20 percent of the premiums, the government would'. [Commercial break]