Senate takes a liking to a House Piece
Just when you thought, HR3962 is a DOA at the senate; Majority Leader Harry Reid is considering plucking a piece for the Senate version. He likes the idea of a higher payroll tax on the upper-income earners to help finance health care legislation. Senator Harry Reid is pretty much a lame duck and is Teflon because he will not be reelected so he intends to introduce in the Senate in the next several days. The first option is raising the payroll tax that goes to Medicare, but only on income above $250,000 a year. The current law sets the tax at 1.45 percent of income, an amount matched by employers. This is under the President Obama not to sign any tax on people who make less than $250K. There are only seven weeks left in the year and Reid sent his proposals to the CBO more than two weeks ago and recently took the first step on the Senate floor to begin a debate on health care as early as next week. Reid has been pulling two separate bills from two separate committees into one. The two biggest fights in the Senate plan will be including an option for consumers to purchase health care from the government as a way to create competition with private companies. Reid is also ready to propose that individuals receiving subsidies would be able to buy abortion coverage with their own funds. Here we go again we a hopeful with better results then in the House.