Health care news has been moving so fast and furiously, that
anytime I begin to write something on the blog, it runs the risk
of being outdated by the time I post it -- or shortly thereafter.
But with that said, as of this writing, we still do not have
either a final health care bill or a score from the Congressional
Budget Office -- and if Democrats want to vote for a bill on
Saturday (allowing President Obama to sign it before leaving on
his trip to Indonesia) they have to release it by tonight (if
they want to stick by their commitment to post the bill online
for 72 hours).
When you keep reading about delays with the CBO score, it only
means they haven't gotten the numbers they want yet. And we now
have a few more data points suggesting that the timeline is
slipping.
"I don't expect to meet until Saturday -- if then," Rules
Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter
toldPolitico. If the Rules Committee doesn't meet
until Saturday, then we wouldn't expect to see a vote until
Sunday.
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.
As I
wrote yesterday, Democrats face a number of challenges
meeting their deficit reduction goals, because the changes they
want will increase spending and decrease revenue. Delaying the
"Cadillac tax" until 2018 alone could deprive them of $85
billion, based on prior CBO estimates (see chart on page 9 of
this
PDF). This may be a minor hiccup, or it may be a real hitch, and
though things have been trending well for Democrats, they still
have a small margin of error when it comes to timing and votes.
It's late in the game to be revisiting the "Cadillac Tax" if that
is in fact what's happening.
…CBS/New York Times Poll. Yet Washington’s priorities appear to be the inverse. Democrats still torturing the numbers and facts to make it seem as if Obamacare actually makes fiscal sense. (Also here.) Maybe we get the historic underestimate today. Meanwhile, let’s break out the world’s smallest violin for the poor CBO slobs; all 254 of them with their oversized salaries and benefits.…
Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Has the Health Care Push Hit … Has the Health Care Push Hit Another Hitch? By Philip Klein on 3.17.10 @ 4:53PM Read the original post: The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Has the Health Care Push Hit … Hillary Clinton in Moscow to push arms treaty, Middle East … Dawg's Blawg: Push comes to shove Did Netanyahu's Settlements Insult Push Obama Left on…
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wtfci| 3.17.10 @ 5:33PM
I smell a triple double cross by the President.
He is Lebron James afterall and in the spirit of March Madness, why not?
Jeff| 3.17.10 @ 5:52PM
Things have been trending well?????
for whom ?
Pete| 3.17.10 @ 7:41PM
Here's another tax:
http://online.wsj.com/article/.....83574.html
Think the market will like it?
Pingback| 3.18.10 @ 9:25AM
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Pingback| 3.18.10 @ 1:51PM
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Pingback| 3.18.10 @ 5:12PM
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