House leadership and the Tri-Committee chairs, Charlie Rangel of Ways and Means; Henry Waxman of Energy and Commerce; and George Miller of Education and Labor, are introducing the initial House version of healthcare reform bill this afternoon, following a meeting yesterday with President Obama who apparently told Democratic leaders in both chambers to pick up the speed and get the work done on these bills prior to August recess.
The speaker met with Obama at the White House on Monday, along with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.).
Both sides told the president they’re still committed to moving a bill out of each chamber by the time lawmakers leave town for the August recess. Baucus and Rangel will each pursue a different way to pay for the bill, and Obama told them he will help them reconcile those differences during conference negotiations, according to White House aides.
During the meeting, Rangel promised to mark up the bill this week, and Baucus told the assembled lawmakers and the president that he would mark it up next week — something that Rangel thinks will help him reassure House Democrats that the Senate will act. The Ways and Means Committee chairman also said the president didn’t give him an explicit signal to abandon an idea to impose a surtax on the wealthy.
Republicans are blasting the potential surtax on the wealthy, while a handful of moderate Dems who don't want the public option to peg reimbursement rates in the program to Medicare, apparently because, again, that would be unfair to private insurers. As for the surtax, the Politico articles notes:
According to a new Greenberg Quinlan poll circulated late last week by House Democrats, Americans favor raising taxes for people making more than $200,000 by 61 percent to 37 percent.
To ground this debate on surtaxing the wealthy, because we're bound to see much screeching about it, Conor Clarke has an an instructive post and graph:
So what does this mean? Here are a few thoughts:
- The details haven't been released yet, but most (if not all) of the families that fall under Rangel's tax plan will also be in this 1% range.
- These are families that paid a lower rate in 2006 (the last date of available data) than they did 15 years ago. That's not an argument for upping the taxes, of course. But it puts it in perspective. (Confession: If you go back to the Reagan years, the top effective rate is lower. But the current rate is still below the historical average.)
- News reports have anticipated Rangel proposing a 1-3% surtax. Even a 3% increase across the board will leave an effective rate lower than it was in 1995.
Keep that in mind when the screeching about taxes starts up.