ABC News Z. Byron Wolf reports: Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee have taken delight this morning in pointing out that if Democrats can enact a health carereform bill that mandates Americans buy health insurance or pay a fine, they are, by definition, enacting a new tax that would break President Obama’s campaign pledge.
And they have taken the opportunity to read Sen. Obama’s pledge as he was running for the White House.
GOP Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, quoting Obama, said, “If you're a family making less than $250,000 a year, my plan will not raise your taxes — not your income taxes, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains tax.”
Sen. John Ensign of Nevada quoted a different riff on the same sentiment.
“But let me be perfectly clear,” he said, quoting candidate Obama. “If your family makes less than $250,000, you will not see your taxes increase one single dime.”
Granted, the penalty for not obtaining health insurance would be a penalty and could be avoided by purchasing insurance, but the effect of the bill– the government exacting a fee from uninsured families who make less than $250,000 — cannot be denied.
Republicans have offered several amendments today that would exempt families making less than $250,000 from the individual mandate to buy health insurance that is at the core of the reform bill.
“If we want to keep the president's promise of not raising taxes by one single dime,” said Ensign, the pledge should be a part of the reform bill.
“We need to settle down and find ways of living within the promises that have been made,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
The author of the bill, Max Baucus, D-Mont.,was frustrated at times, arguing against the amendments.
“If we're serious about this, we have to have shared responsibility,” Baucus said, raising his voice. He called the amendments not serious and designed simply to send a message by Republicans about taxes. They would have the effect, said Baucus, of gutting the provisions in the bill that keep health reform from adding to the deficit.
Baucus had lowered the penalty in half at the outset of the markup. A family of four making more than four times the poverty level– about $88,000– would have to pay a fine of $1,900 for not having insurance. The penalty is lower for families making less money.
Other amendments, also turned back, would have scaled back an excise tax Baucus would place on insurance companies that offer high-value “Cadillac” insurance plans. This is a back door to taxing the people who receive those plans, which often include no co-payment and are thought to drive up the cost of health care. And Republicans argued that insurance companies would simply pass the excise tax along to people, many of them union members, who receive the plans.
Baucus had raised the value of the plans that would be taxed at the outset of the markup and exempted many people in public service who receive them.
The amendments were repelled with largely party line votes. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., who faces a tough reelection fight in 2010, sided with Republicans.
This is the seventh day of the markup. Tomorrow, it will become the longest markup staffers on the committee can find.
There probably will not be a final vote on the health reform bill in the Senate Finance Committee until next week, when the CBO can come up with its best guess cost estimate. We are entering the final stretch of the amendment process, which Baucus predicted would end either late Thursday or Friday.
UPDATE: Eagle-eyed Republicans point out that Baucus’ own bill refers to the penalty for not having insurance under an individual mandate as an excise tax. Check out page 29 HERE.
White House Press Secretary RobertGibbstoday referred to the tax as more like a speeding ticket.
The IRS says an excise tax is what is paid on something like motor fuel.
But the point remains that health reform will leave people who make less than $250,000 paying a new tax to the government. It's clear that Democrats and the White House are comfortable living with that if they can enact health care reform.
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