Unions To The White House

[John Richard Clinton Maenpaa]

Unions To The White House

White House meets with union leaders today over the tax issue.

Time explores the tense talks around the high-premium insurance tax: "...the issue now emerging as the major flash point is the Senate's proposed 40% excise tax on high-cost insurance policies ... Sources on all sides say they believe there ultimately will be a compromise that would maintain the tax but lift the threshold, so that it would be applied to fewer policies. Yet that would leave the question of where to raise the lost revenue ... it appears increasingly unlikely that Obama will see a final bill passed by both houses this month as he had hoped. That is not just because of the difficulty in reaching a deal, but also because anything that is proposed must be scored by the Congressional Budget Office for its impact on the deficit, a process that could take nearly two weeks."

E.J. Dionne assesses what's negotiable and what isn't: "The public option is, alas, dead. But the idea of setting up a national insurance exchange -- alongside state exchanges -- where the uninsured can buy coverage is very much alive. The House is demanding this as the price for giving up on the public plan, and a national exchange would provide for much more consumer-friendly regulation of health insurance policies ... The tax on 'Cadillac' insurance plans, opposed by both organized labor and the insurance industry, is likely to be scaled back but not eliminated."

HCAN's Jason Rosenbaum attack the root problem with the insurance tax: "The excise tax idea is, therefore, directly at odds with the other main goal of health reform - to get peoplebetter care. Taxing health care benefits is designed to get employers to spend less on health care. That policy will directly shift costs to you, and that means higher deductibles, less choice of doctors, and worse health benefits."

OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow debunks latest argument in support of the tax: "...a new argument in favor of the health excise tax: Since the tax will be imposed on insurers, the Senate's limit of 15% for insurance company profit and overhead will prevent the cost from being passed on to consumers ... [But] the tax isn't designed to be paid. It's designed to cut benefits so that health plans fall below the tax's trigger levels ... if the tax isn't levied, the 85% rule doesn't matter. The harm has already been done, either to the family budget or the family's health."

Emptywheel sees under siege insurance tax advocate Jonathan Gruber implicitly conceding a key point:...Gruber dramatically backs off one of the key claims excise tax supporters make about the tax-that it will result in a pay increase for those affected. Indeed, he seems to suggest (though I'd need to see a direct quote to be sure) that he doesn't actually know whether decreasing health care costs would increase wages. He certainly doesn't appear to say he's got a study to prove that."

NYT sears Gruber for not consistently disclosing federal government contract, while FDL's David Dayen knocks NYT for quoting Gruber again.

NYT plays up criticism of overall bill from left, right and center in Colorado but finds support too.

http://ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010010211/progressive-breakast-uni...