Will the Senate be the savior for the three tenths of one-percent who'll pay the House surtax?

[flpoljunkie]

The 5.4% surtax to help pay to insure 36 millions people who are currently uninsured? The surtax will be applied to modified AGI in excess of $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for joint filers. If you are single and your modified AGI is $500,000 you don't pay a dime--likewise for joint filers with modified AGI of $1 million.

The Senate is sometimes known as the Millionaires Club. Nancy Pelosi has dubbed the House surtax the 'millionaires' tax. Will the Senate put 'millionaires' above the other 99.7% of us? Do they dare?

NBC's Samantha Guthrie just said on Nightly News that this is the now big bone of contention between the House and Senate bills.

[BzaDem]

1. The resulting healthcare reform bill will have the tax on high-end health plans. Bank on it.

The reason isn't that the Senate wants to punish non-millionaires more than millionaires. It is that the millionaire tax does not grow as quickly as healthcare costs. Healthcare costs (which subsidies are tied to) rise three times as fast as wages (what income taxes are tied to). You need to tax health benefits (tied to healthcare costs) to be deficit neutral in the out years. The millionaire's tax is (unfortunately) a dog and pony show, at least for financing healthcare reform.

[flpoljunkie]

2. Tax HC benefits at what levels? The Senate's $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for joint filers?

I understand this would hurt working Americans in just a few years.

Do you honestly think the American people would stand for having to pay income tax on health care benefits when they have foregone raises to pay for these increased health care costs for quite a number of years.

I don't think so.