TPM: Pelosi Wants Excise Tax Stripped From Senate Health Care Bill

[highplainsdem]

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/pelosi-wants-excise-tax-stripped-from-senate-bill.php

Pelosi Wants Excise Tax Stripped From Senate Health Care Bill

Brian Beutler | January 6, 2010, 9:44AM

After an afternoon meeting with House leaders and health care principals yesterday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke in vague terms about what reform must accomplish: Affordability, accountability, and accessibility. "A triple 'A' rating," as she described it.

But aides say she's particularly steamed that the White House wants her to largely adopt the Senate bill in its entirety. And she's particularly unhappy that the White House has thrown its weight behind the Senate bill's chief funding mechanism: an excise tax on so-called "Cadillac" insurance policies, which she and many in her caucus have long believed violates President Obama's pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class. According to one aide, that--not the public option--was likely the reason she ribbed Obama at her press conference yesterday, quipping, "there were a number of things he was for on the campaign trail."

The House proposes paying for its bill by imposing a surtax on high-income Americans. And though there's been speculation for months that the final reform package will include a combination of both sources of revenue, Pelosi, who's already had to accept the demise of the public option, wants the excise tax gone.

That will be a tough sell with the White House, which has endorsed the Senate's measures. But other issues are coming into focus as House priorities as well. The House bill organizes insurance exchanges at the national level, while the Senate bill requires states to erect their own. Pelosi's proposal would also make mandatory insurance more affordable for individuals below 300 percent of the poverty line, require insurance companies to cover a greater percentage of health care costs, and would implement most major benefits a year earlier than would the Senate bill.

-snip-

[chimpymustgo]

1. Put the public option IN. Take the middle class taxes OUT. Abortion restrictions OUT.

Then we're talking about reform.

[tosh]

2. +1.

[joeybee12]

3. Agree wholeheartedly...n/t

[Jamastiene]

5. +1

[TheWraith]

8. And then it doesn't pass.

And then there's 20 more years of preexisting conditions and no restrictions on the insurance industry.

[highplainsdem]

21. +1

[dkf]

4. They want to make the house irrelevant. Don't let them do it!

Go Nancy go!

[katandmoon]

6. Oh, keep insisting on the tax until Pelosi backs down, Obama - and enjoy your one-term presidency.

[TheWraith]

9. You're delirious. nt

[katandmoon]

19. No. I'm repulsed and disgusted this so-called agent of change turned out to be such a fucking liar..

[Kansas Wyatt]

7. So the Senate version IS the Obama HCR Plan.

Obama Purists may chime in at anytime...

DLCers at least?

[freddie mertz]

16. Crickets chirp, once again...

[Nikki Stone1]

22. That seems to be pretty much it.

.

[Shagbark Hickory]

10. I think they'll do it. Take the cadillac taxes out that is. They need to keep the unions on board

somehow and it sure as hell isn't going to happen by including a public option.
It's not like we really need to find a way to pay for this shit.

[Better Believe It]

11. She'll cave in to the Senate and White House on almost every major issue.

She already has on the public option.

[TheKentuckian]

12. To have the beginnings of actual reform we need

National exchanges
to delete the Max Tax
To end the anti-trust exemption
Hobble the anti-choice amendments
Every person under a mandate also has choice
and the public option would be nice

No bill without at least the national exchanges, the anti-trust exemption removed, and the Max Tax edited/deleted should pass with a mandate.

[burning rain]

13. For my part, I'd like to see the House insist on its bill...

and tell the Senate and White House to go fuck themselves. Stop whimpering about 60 votes and pass it with the nuclear option.

[glitch]

14. +all in. nt

[chimpymustgo]

15. There you go. Now that's more like the CHESS moves we've been assured of.

[freddie mertz]

17. So now we know where the president stands, and it is with Lieberman-Nelson-Baucus.

Gag me with a spoon, but I suspected all along.

[Nikki Stone1]

18. "White House wants her to largely adopt the Senate bill in its entirety."

Knew that was coming.

[shopgreen]

20. Yup-the WH wants a bill --ANY bill.