FixHealthCarePolicy

Chart: How 5.4% Surtax Hits Small Business, State by State

Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York and other House Democrats propose to pay for their $1.3 trillion bill to create government-run health care with a 5.4 percent surtax on 2.04 million high-income Americans — about half of them small business owners. Americans would face European-style taxes, paying top rates that – combined with local and state taxes – exceed those of economic competitors such as Germany and Japan. Taxpayers in Italy, Spain, and even France pay lower rates. And that’s not all: President Obama would have the power to increase the surtax.

Go here for the chart with all 50 states. (more…)

Tags: Charlie Rangel, corporate taxes, Democrats, europe, health care, new taxes, small business, States

The Senate Health Bill: Chock Full of Bad Health Policy

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate majority leader, wants to rush the Senate health care legislation through the process by July 27, 2009. It’s not hard to see why.

After 13 days of intense debate, the Senate HELP Committee just finished work on the Senate bill (The Affordable Health Choices Act) and reported it to the full Senate for consideration. During the Committee consideration of the bill, there were hundreds of amendments, dealing with topics ranging from abortions to funding jungle gyms. Much of the internal Committee debate received little attention in the major media. But the Committee’s decisions, if the Senate bill is enacted into law, will affect every American. Consider some of the key decisions:

Covering Abortion. (Mikulski Amendment #201 ) Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) offered an amendment that would require health insurers to include “essential community providers” in their networks. They would provide “preventive care services” for women. These entities include providers like Planned Parenthood clinics, which perform abortions. Few Americans would be comfortable knowing that federal dollars would be funding abortions. In effect, this policy is directly contrary to previous congressional funding restrictions on abortion payment, such as the Hyde Amendment. Republican Senators’ attempts to exclude abortions from the bill failed. (more…)

Tags: congress, Democrats, Harry Reid, health care, health care reformm, Senate

Democrats at Odds on Financing Reform

The New York Times reports that House and Senate Democracts “appeared on Thursday to be on a collision course over how to pay for a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system.” House members have called for taxing the rich while senators “have all but dismissed [the idea] as unworkable.”

Tags: Democrats, health care system, tax

Editorial Takes on Health Reform Myth

A Wall Street Journal editorial today challenges the conventional wisdom that it was the Harry and Louise ads from a “unified private health sector that killed the 1993-94 Clinton health plan.”

“It’s a clever historical rewrite, offering not only an excuse for [Democrats] prior defeat, but a bogeyman for today’s health-care battle,” the opinion column says.

Instead, the article highlights how many of the health industry’s bigger players, such as large insurers, were willing to deal with the Clinton administration in return for regulations that meant bigger profits.

Tags: Democrats, Harry and Louise, insurers