After yesterday's meeting between Obama and labor leaders, the White House says Obama remains committed to the excise tax, but is open to changing it.
President Obama told union leaders at a private White House meeting on Monday that he remained committed to taxing high-cost insurance policies as a way to drive down health costs. But he also signaled that he was willing to amend the proposal to "make this work for working families," a senior administration official said....
Mr. Obama’s remarks, at an hourlong session with a dozen labor leaders in the White House Roosevelt Room, came just hours after the new president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., Richard L. Trumka, delivered a speech at the National Press Club in which he criticized the tax as a "policy that benefits elites" and warned that Democrats would pay a price at the polls if it was enacted.
Privately, Mr. Obama and the union officials used Monday’s session to search for a sort of compromise, said a union leader who was briefed on the discussion. This official, who said the tone of the meeting was friendly, said it was clear that there would be some sort of excise tax in the final bill, but that the president "threw out some new concepts" in how it might be designed.
Obama's concession that the tax as written will hurt working families is critical to the House's efforts to alter the plant. Labor has made no bones about its opposition to the excise tax, with with one union blasting Obama for breaking campaign promises on the tax.
"If candidates make a promise to us, we hold them accountable. We held President Bush accountable when he made decisions that had a negative impact on our members' jobs and lives. We will do the same with President Obama," reads a statement from IAFF President Harold Schaitberger. "In 2008, then-candidate Obama promised three things: he said he would not raise taxes on folks making less than $250,000 a year; he vowed not to tax health insurance benefits; and he promised that under his health reform plan, people would be able to keep their existing coverage."
Obama's other problem is the House Democratic caucus. Two senior House aides familiar with the negotiations have told me that the excise tax as is cannot pass the House. Rep. Joe Courtney has the signature of 190 Dem House members who are opposed to the bill--all of whom understand precisely the political dangers of this tax because they all have to run for re-election this year.
Comments are closed on this story.