What's more costly, that our Democrat government is inept, or health care reform? Unfortunately, they are one and the same. Already behind schedule, they've suddenly realized they may actually have to figure out how to pay for it. I realize that's all but unheard of in Washington these days, but geesh. If they think they are going to change everyone in America's health care and a huge portion of the nation's GDP with some last minute, too important to read BS, they are going to be thrown out in droves come 2010. Unfortunately, for the Democrat majority, at least, that may already be inevitable. Still, they are intent on making it worse. I won't be sorry to see them go.
On Wednesday, according to a Capitol Hill source, the Senate Finance Committee distributed to its members a list of about twenty ways to help pay for health care reform. Everything you could imagine was on the list: Taxes on soda and cigarettes. More savings from Medicare and Medicaid. A value-added tax.
It might sound like an ordinary and perfectly reasonable thing to do. And it would be--if this exercise were taking place, oh, six weeks ago.
But it’s the second week of July. By this point, the Finance Committee was supposed to be holding hearings in order to “mark up” legislation, so that the full Senate would have time to consider and vote on it before the August recess. Instead, the Committee is, in a sense, stuck at square one. Or at least square four, when it needs to be at square seven. Markup hearings won’t begin until there's language to mark up. And there won't be language until there's a basic understanding of the financing part.
What brought us to this juncture? Most immediately, it was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s message to Finance Chairman Max Baucus on Monday, which was widely reported in the press but somewhat under-appreciated for its import.
Most observers focused on the fact that Reid made clear to Baucus the strong preference of Democratic Senators for including a public insurance option, something Baucus was ready to ditch in order to win Republican support. Reid said that alright. But that wasn’t the only thing he said--or, apparently, the most important.
No, according to several sources on and off Capitol Hill, Reid’s primary message was about the financing of reform. Baucus had hoped to get around $300 billion in funding over the next ten years by capping the tax exclusion on group health benefits. I’m not sure what the exact parameters of the cap were supposed to be, but it's safe to assume they would either have hit a small number of people, hit people with a small tax hike, or some combination of the two.*
This apparently was unacceptable to several members of the Democratic caucus. Highly unacceptable. If reform included a cap on the exclusion, Reid warned, between ten and fifteen Democrats would oppose it. That's why Baucus and his colleagues on Finance are back to looking for money.
Where is Slide on this one?
Posted by: xerocky | Friday, July 10, 2009 at 06:55 AM