Consumer advocates warn senior citizens constantly to beware of hucksters peddling deals too good to be true. Gov. Ed Rendell is hawking a proposal for seniors so lucrative it sounds like a scam -- but it isn't. His plan is to save the state about $150 million a year and, at the same time, save low-income senior citizens a few bucks every month on prescriptions. It'll work like this: The state Department of Aging would arrange for the state's PACE and PACENET prescription plans to merge with the new Medicare prescription program. The $400 million annual cost of the PACE and PACENET program is paid for now with proceeds from the state lottery. By merging them with the Medicare prescription program, a portion of those costs will be paid by the federal government. The money Pennsylvania saves as a result may be used for other programs to benefit senior citizens. To ensure that low-income senior citizens receive the same or better benefits and are not perplexed by the merger, the Aging Department will offer to select the best plan for each and has set up the program so that most will pay less money than they do now and so that none will make annual payments of approximately $2,500, called "doughnut holes," that must be paid by higher income senior citizens with drug costs above $5,100 a year enrolled in the Medicare prescription program. As it is now, the 190,686 Pennsylvanians age 65 or older who make less than $14,500 a year for an individual, or less than $17,700 for a couple, and are enrolled in PACE must make a co-payment of $6 for generic drugs and $9 for name brand prescriptions. Those fees would drop to $2 and $5 when PACE is converted to Medicare. Currently, the 128,075 senior citizens who don't qualify for PACE but make less than $23,500 a year for an individual or less than $31,500 for a couple and are enrolled in PACENET, pay a monthly premium of $40. That would be no higher than $33. Their co-payments of $8 for a generic drug and $15 for a name brand would remain the same. State Sen. Patricia H. Vance, a Republican from Camp Hill, introduced legislation in April that would permit the Aging Department to make the switch to Medicare. The bill needs to be sent out of a committee before the full Senate can vote on it. It's time to move this legislation. Every day it sits in committee without action is a day of savings lost, for both Pennsylvania taxpayers and PACE and PACENET beneficiaries. The Legislature must make this too-good-to-be-true proposal true.