but it will involve soaking the rich, as if we couldn’t have guessed:
Leaders in House Seek to Tax Rich for Health Plan (emphasis added):
House Democrats will ask the wealthiest Americans to help pay for overhauling the health care system with a $550 billion income tax increase, the chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee said Friday.
The proposal calls for a surtax on individuals earning at least $280,000 in adjusted gross income and couples earning more than $350,000, said the chairman, Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York.
I wonder if many of Mr Rangel’s supporters saw it coming when they donated to his campaign. This means a tax-and-tax again deal, with no end in sight:
But emerging from daylong committee negotiations Friday, Mr. Rangel said the income surtax would take effect in 2011 and begin at 1 percent of adjusted gross income — earnings before deductions like those for mortgage interest and charitable contributions — and would apply to individuals earning more than $280,000 and couples earning more than $350,000.
The surtax would be increased for individuals earning more than $400,000 and couples earning more than $500,000, and step up again for individuals earning over $800,000 and couples earning above $1 million. The precise extent of these increases has not been announced.
Mr. Rangel’s committee is also planning to insert language that would raise the surtax in 2013 if expected cost savings in the health care system do not materialize.
Countries like France that have enacted “rich surtaxes” have found that the rich moved to friendlier environments, such as Lichtenstein. Any “rich surtax” generates a substantial flight of capital from the country issuing it. During a recession, the Dems generate proposal after proposal making the American economy less competitive in the world market.
But hey, Charlie’s looking at “generating billions”:
It would generate about $550 billion over 10 years to pay about half the cost of the legislation, Mr. Rangel said. As the proposal envisions it, the rest of the cost would be covered by lower spending on Medicare, the government health plan for the elderly, and other health care savings.
It’s not clear what Rangel means by “other health care savings,” but the Medicare deal involves stealing from Peter to give to Paul.As I was saying the other day, “lower spending on Medicare” means a combination of
- Cutting down on services covered
- Reducing payments to providers who already don’t cover their expenses with Medicare’s payments
- Increasing Medicare deductibles and patients’ out-of-pocket
- Raising the age one becomes eligible for Medicare
Free?
How are you paying for it, Charlie?
This is how income tax got started; a tiny charge on only the very rich.
Well, in antiquity the unwanted babies or those born with health problems were placed on the garbage heaps outside the city walls. That’s where the stories about early Christians and then Jews eating babies came from because the believers would sneak out and retrieve the babies and raise them as their own.
Also Soylent Green has possibilities.