This is frankly rather amazing in that totally-saw-it-coming way. We’ve been waiting for days to see the CBO score to see how much the final health care bill will cost, with the goals being to both reduce the deficit and to fit under the arbitrary $900 billion cap posed by Obama.
It seems they’ve been unable to do so, as Ben Smith now reports that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is on his way to the White House to discuss plans by Democrats to actually raise the tax on middle class health care plans in order to pay for the bill.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is headed into a meeting with President Obama this afternoon after the White House and Congressional leaders have begun to discuss a higher-than-expected excise tax on some health care plans, in order to maintain their claim that health care legislation will reduce the deficit, a source involved in health care talks said.
Any unexpected change to the health care plan could endanger support for the bill from labor, which agreed to back it after reductions to the planned excise tax. Proposed new changes, I’m told, concern cuts to the rate at which increases to the tax exemption cap are indexed.
They already stole at least $10 billion in the student loan reform bill from community colleges to pay for this PhRMA bailout. Jon Walker notes that adding a public option would save at least $25 billion in the bill. The House paid for its bill by taxing the richest Americans.
And yet, faced will trying to contain the costs of this bill, Democrats’ first instinct is to raise taxes on the middle class even further. Brilliant!
Frankly, this is what unions get for accepting the excise tax in the first place. They agreed to the health care tax — a Reagan idea — and so of course they should expect it to be raised. I just don’t think they thought it’d be raised before they even pass the bill.
[Ed. Note: Dave has a bit more.]
Tags: AFL-CIO, Cadillac tax, excise tax, health care reform, Richard Trumka, Ronald Reagan
