Health care legislation took a major step toward the finish line today, when the White House and congressional leaders reached a deal on one of the major remaining issues: a proposal, known was the Cadillac tax, to impose a 40% levy on expensive insurance policies. Indeed, it was with the end in sight–and the prospect of a difficult midterm election season to come–that President Obama journeyed to Capitol Hill to declare to House Democrats: “If Republicans want to campaign against what we’ve done by standing up for the status quo and for insurance companies over American families and businesses, that is a fight I want to have.”
Senators Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders and Al Franken just introduced an amendment to the Senate health reform legislation that will make the unions happy. They proposed eliminating the bill’s tax on so-called “Cadillac health plans” and replacing it with a new tax on immensely rich Americans. The new tax would be 5.4% and would apply [...]
