June 7 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama wants Congress to consider taxing the wealthy instead of workers to pay for a health-care overhaul, as House Democrats discuss a plan to require health insurance for most Americans.
The Obama administration stepped up efforts to influence health-care legislation today as advisers David Axelrod and Austan Goolsbee appeared on television talk shows to discuss the issue.
The president is trying to avoid broad-based levies such as a Senate proposal to tax some employer-provided health benefits Axelrod said. Instead he is urging lawmakers to reconsider limiting all tax deductions for Americans in the highest tax brackets.
“He made a very strong case for the proposal that he put on the table, which was to cap deductions for high-income Americans, and he urged them to go back and look at that,” Axelrod said on the CNN’s “State of the Union.” Goolsbee, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” said Obama is “mindful” about how “ordinary Americans are able to foot the bills” and never proposed taxing employee benefits.
House Democrats are weighing a new proposal in response to Obama’s call for legislation to be enacted by August. An outline of the plan obtained by Bloomberg News would require Americans to have insurance with some exceptions.
It would probably exempt those who can prove they can’t find an affordable policy. There could be a tax penalty for those with adequate financial resources who don’t elect to get insurance, according to the outline.
The outline suggests consumers who have individual health insurance policies that they like could keep them. Still, it says that “by and large” the nation’s market for individually purchased health insurance policies would move to a new federally operated exchange. It would permit both individuals and employees of small firms to buy policies at less expensive group rates.
“States will have the option to run a state exchange but the default will be a national exchange,” according to the outline.
Karen Lightfoot, a spokeswoman for House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat whose panel is working on a proposal, said the document that is circulating is not the official work of the committee.
All House Democrats will be briefed June 9 on the details of a single piece of legislation that three House committees will work on, with the House slated to act by the end of July. The proposal is part of a broader push by Democrats in Congress to complete a revamp of the U.S. health-care system by an early fall timetable set by Obama.
Kennedy’s Approach
In the Senate, health committee chairman Edward Kennedy has an early draft of legislation that also includes a so-called “individual mandate,” and would require all employers to supply health insurance for workers or contribute to the cost of a plan.
Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, would also create a public health plan to compete with private insurers, a priority of Obama’s that is opposed by Republicans, and would bar insurers from limiting coverage.
The effort to overhaul health-care would affect a sector that makes up 17 percent of the U.S. economy. The goal of Democratic supporters is to provide insurance to most of the nation’s 46 million uninsured, and lower the soaring cost of care. A key challenge is the potential impact of legislation on an already rising U.S. budget deficit that may reach $1.8 trillion this year.
Axelrod, speaking on CNN today, said the ultimate goal of legislation is to reduce costs.
“We have to bring down the cost of health care,” he said. “If we do that and make it affordable, people are going to buy it, mandate or no mandate.”
Burdens on Business
Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, speaking on Fox, said reducing costs would also ease burdens on business.
“The only way to really address this is to address the combination of coverage and cost,” Schmidt said. “So anything that the Congress and the president does has to do that. And from my perspective, the sooner the better.”
“You won’t fundamentally solve the problems in business until you solve the problem of spiraling health-care costs, which is driving everybody crazy,” he added.
Lawmakers have a plethora of proposals to raise the hundreds of billions estimated to be needed for an overhaul, including new taxes on soda, beer, and wine, and a partial tax on employer-provided health insurance for the first time. The tax-free nature of employer-provided insurance is the biggest tax expenditure in the federal budget.
Taxing Cap Deductions
Obama’s own proposal would set a 28 percent cap on tax deductions for items such as mortgage interest, investment expenses and charitable gifts for Americans in the two highest tax brackets, which would be 36 percent and 39.6 percent under his proposals. Without the cap, they would be able to deduct 36 cents and 39.6 cents on the dollar for those expenses, respectively.
Obama also proposes new taxes on securities dealers and life insurers, and to raise revenue by prohibiting certain estate-planning techniques.
House Democrats intend, like Kennedy, to include a new government program to provide health-care to a portion of the uninsured who don’t already qualify for Medicare or Medicaid, according to the outline.
While the lawmakers continue working out the details, they intend the new program to operate through the exchange and for both the public program and private insurance policies to have the same basic benefits.
Helping the Poor
House Democrats want to improve the Medicaid health-care system for the poor, including a uniform benefits package and “improved” provider payments. They are weighing whether to add people who are near the poverty level to Medicaid or to provide subsidies to allow them to purchase their own policies.
The plan would place new restrictions on private insurers, including a bar on excluding coverage for those with “pre- existing conditions.”
The legislation would seek to get some cost savings from Medicare and Medicaid, including incentives for doctors to coordinate their care and get bonuses for improving quality, according to the outline.
It would probably exempt those who can prove they can’t find an affordable policy. There could be a tax penalty for those with adequate financial resources who don’t elect to get insurance, according to the outline.
here's a shake down and one reason for moving of the census bureau's move of oversight.......
coming soon: Take this vaccine or to jail for contempt of 'healthcare'........ or Take this statin or to jail/fine for contempt of 'healthcare'.........
coming soon: punch in time clock via BIOS fingerprints.....take this statin or no pay for you employee #876 until you do.......
pay attention.....closely...very very closely.......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
The wealthy are already paying for health care. They are the business/corporate owners who offer health care to their employees. The ones who negotiate yearly contracts with these insurance companies. The ones who foot the largest portion of health care for their employees.
And the wealthiest are already paying tons into the tax base that also pay for our government jobs with benefits. (including us, the less wealthy). So are they going to expect our 'wealthiest' to pay even more for the public sector's health care too? This is beyond belief. I can't believe that I am experiencing this in this 'use to be great country' of ours!!!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Main Entry:wealth Pronunciation:\ˈwelth also ˈweltth\ Function:noun Etymology:Middle English welthe, from wele weal Date:13th century 1obsolete : weal, welfare 2: abundance of valuable material possessions or resources 3: abundant supply : profusion 4 a: all property that has a money value or an exchangeable value b: all material objects that have economic utility ; especially : the stock of useful goods having economic value in existence at any one time
There are a mirad of different kinds of wealth.....
Dems double down on health care Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with fellow Democratic Reps. George Miller, Steny Hoyer, Dave Obey, John Larson and Charles Rangel, has been shepherding health care legislation through the House.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer are double-teaming powerful chairmen and rank-and-file members to save health care reform from a repeat of the Democratic Party infighting that helped kill it in 1994.
In a closed-door session Tuesday, Pelosi assured rank-and-file Democrats that she won’t move forward on a bill without their consent. “We have to hear from you,” one participant quoted Pelosi as saying.
In a separate closed-door session in the speaker’s office, Pelosi and Hoyer urged Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) to heed the concerns of moderate Democrats.
That meeting came on the heels of a joint memo prepared by top aides to the speaker and the majority leader.
While Hoyer has been marshaling support for health care reform for months, Pelosi’s increasingly hands-on involvement reflects the pressure to move quickly on President Barack Obama’s top first-year legislative priority — and it’s a signal that there’s no daylight to exploit between the speaker and her No. 2.
“The point is to send a message clearly that they’re not going to play the speaker off of Hoyer on this stuff,” said a Democratic health care lobbyist.
Waxman, Miller and Rangel — along with their respective aides — are trying to draft legislation in concert with each other so their committees will take up the same bill later this summer.
“This is the year we have to do it,” Waxman told reporters after the caucus meeting. “There’s an overwhelming commitment to getting this done.”
“We’ll all go together,” Miller said Tuesday.
“Ultimately,” said Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), “our job is to come together as a caucus.”
But that’s easier said than done — especially on an issue as contentious as this one.
Moderate Democrats have been warning their leaders for weeks against pushing proposals that undermine the private market, particularly a so-called public option that could dissuade consumers or businesses from purchasing private insurance. In a letter to their leaders last week, fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats said a public option should be created only if insurance market reforms and increased competition don’t lower costs on their own.
Rangel and Waxman have both rejected this argument.
“Everyone can’t get everything,” Waxman told reporters Tuesday. “Why should private companies object to competition?”
In addition, both the Blue Dogs and members of the New Democratic Coalition want to make sure the public plan isn’t based on Medicare rules; they want the plan to pay for itself and operate under the same guidelines as private plans.
But more-liberal members want a more expansive — and expensive — plan. During the closed-door session Tuesday, Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) told colleagues that any bill should include mental health and dental insurance.
California Rep. Pete Stark, an outspoken liberal who chairs the Health Subcommittee on Ways and Means, would like to see more government funding than party leaders will allow. But he predicted that members will put their individual priorities aside in the hopes of getting a bill through Congress.
“Everyone can’t get everything,” Waxman told reporters Tuesday. “Why should private companies object to competition?”
Competition WITH the government who will have an endless amount of funds from the taxpayers???? Ya, that sound like private enterprise, huh? These people are just plain NUTS!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
“Everyone can’t get everything,” Waxman told reporters Tuesday. “Why should private companies object to competition?”
THERE IS NO COMPETITION WITH THE GOVERNMENT......that is very very very wrong for a government position......what needs to be changed is our view of what healthcare is.......it's an OXYMORON......
do we not think that Nancy Pelosi and 200 of her family members/friends will get 'special care' because she has $$$$,,,,,they move to the front of the line......
how much does a government puchased hammer cost and what about the labor/oversight/choice etc etc.......
IT'S SOOOOOOOO MUCH MORE THAN $$$......
Levitra is probably standard in the senate and house......otherwise all those fancy schmancy hotels wouldn't be in business........do we pay for that
DONT TREAD ON ME AND KISS MY AMERICAN A@#....................................
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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