Obama not closing door on possible health care tax.
Senators working to give President Barack Obama a comprehensive health care overhaul said Thursday they had figured out how to pare back the complex legislation to keep costs from crashing through a $1 trillion, 10-year ceiling.Hmmm, I thought Democrats were the party who were looking out for the little guy, the poor.
The announcement from Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and other lawmakers amounted to a small, parting gift to Obama on his top domestic priority as Congress prepares to leave town for its weeklong July 4 recess. It moved Congress a bit closer to a deal on legislation to lower costs and provide coverage to nearly 50 million Americans who lack it.
It also capped two weeks of tough going for health care negotiations on Capitol Hill as price tags as high as $1.6 trillion over 10 years sent senators back to the drawing board and forced deadlines to be repeatedly reset.
"We have options that would enable us to write a $1 trillion bill, fully paid for," Baucus said at a news conference.
Baucus declined to detail how the costs were being cut, but options included difficult sacrifices like potentially delaying an expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state program for the poor.
1 comment:
Aye yay yay! I can't believe they're throwing out *another* tax! This is just one more reminder that the only real way to keep our economy strong is not by raising taxes, but by keeping taxes low, fair and simple.
We need to take action and contact our legislators and sign petitions like the ones the U.S. Chamber of Commerce backs (here).
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