How to Pay for Universal Health Care !...7/11/09

House to Target Wealthy on Healthcare
By Jeffrey Young

The House will propose raising taxes on people earning more than $350,000 a year to pay $540 billion for healthcare reform, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) said Friday. House Democrats had been weighing a plethora of other tax increases, such as levies on sugary soft drinks and alcohol, that raised hackles within their caucus. Instead, Rangel said Democrats will seek to enact one large tax increase targeting wealthier workers to generate the revenue they need to finance their $1 trillion-plus healthcare reform bill.“We have decided that instead of putting pieces of different revenue raisers together, that the best that we can do [is] we would have graduated surtaxes starting at [$]350],000],” Rangel said. The tax hikes would begin in 2011 and raise $540 billion over 10 years, he said after a meeting with Democratic committee members.The price tag of the bill is expected to be around $1 trillion. Democrats have already tentatively assembled a package of spending cuts worth around $500 billion, mostly from Medicare and Medicaid. The combination of the tax increase and the spending cuts would provide House Democrats with most, if not all, of the money they need to meet their pledge that healthcare reform would not add to the budget deficit over the next decade.By targeting high-income earners, the House enables President Obama to keep his campaign promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.There would be different surtax rates, ranging from 1 percent to 3 percent, for workers with annual earnings of $350,000, $500,000 and $1 million, Rangel said. Surtaxes are calculated by adding the relevant percentage to workers’ regular yearly tax bill.House Democrats were originally scheduled to release their full healthcare reform bill Friday, including details about paying for the legislation, with markups in three committees slated to begin Monday but were forced to delay because of dissension in their own ranks. Democratic leaders now expect to unveil their revised bill Monday.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) promised Obama that the lower chamber would pass a healthcare reform bill by July 31. After Friday’s delay, Democrats have a dwindling number of days to accomplish that goal.Obama said his goals and timeline remain doable. “There are going to be some tough negotiations in the days and weeks to come, but I'm confident that we're going to get it done,” Obama said during a news conference in Italy Friday Nevertheless, Obama acknowledged his August deadline could slip: “I never believe anything is do-or-die but I really want to get it done by the August recess.”Centrist House Democrats objected to numerous aspects of the bill, including the creation of a government-run health insurance plan, and said the measures does not go far enough in containing the rising cost of healthcare.“We want to make sure we’re containing costs and slowing the rate of healthcare down to the rate of inflation as best we can. We think we have to do that before we do anything else,” Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), who is spearheading the Blue Dogs’ healthcare efforts, said after a meeting with House leaders Friday.The protest from the Blue Dog Democrats prompted Pelosi and the committee chairmen to postpone action while they try to satisfy the centrists’ complaints. Blue Dog met with Pelosi Thursday night and with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Rangel, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) on Friday.“They were receptive. They understand they’ve got to change the bill if they want to pass it,” Ross said. “I expect more intense negotiations to occur over the next week or two.”Ross indicated that the slipping timetable was not a concern to him: “We’ve been trying to reform healthcare since Teddy Roosevelt. I think we’ll be okay if we delay it a week or two.” Rangel said that his committee was taking their concerns to heart and would modify the bill to assure the support of centrist Democrats. “As long as it didn’t do damage to the bill and was consistent with where the Speaker and the president would want us, we don’t have any problem with that,” he said.Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), a Ways and Means Committee member, predicted that the three House committees would still be able to begin marking up the healthcare bill next week and passing it before the House departs for its August recess“We’re still operating under the timeline and we want to get this done before we adjourn,” said Larson, adding that Hoyer’s target date for a floor vote is July 29. But much work needs to be done to win over the centrists, he added. “We’re not singing kumbaya yet.”Lingering bad feelings among centrists about how the House leadership managed the writing of the recently passed climate change bill are partly fueling the protests over healthcare, said Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.). “A lot of their concerns emanate from, frankly, they don’t want to see the same process that took place on energy. That has caused a certain about of consternation,” Larson said.Centrists threatened a revolt over the legislation until Pelosi and Waxman agreed to changes demanded by Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and others.Blue Dogs do not feel as though the leadership or the committee chairmen are taking their views seriously early enough in the process, Shuler said. “They were going to unveil [the bill] today, originally, and we have our first meeting” that same day, he complained.

Editorial : I can hear the republicans now, taxing the rich is wrong. Sorry that dog won`t hunt anymore. The rich have so many tax loop holes now, it is pathetic. The only other thing, I can attest to is that the rich could move their accounts off-shore.... Opps, my mistake, they have done that already !