Another Health Bill Arrives

- Scale back Medicare and Medicaid payments to hospitals and doctors.

In addition to imposing the 5.4% surtax on individuals and families with annual gross incomes exceeding $1 million, the bill would impose a 1% surtax on individuals and families with annual incomes between $350,000 and $500,000, and a 1.5% surtax on individuals and families with annual incomes between $500,000 and $1 million.

The surtax rates would increase to 2% in 2013 for taxpayers with annual incomes ranging from $350,000 to $500,000, and to 3% for taxpayers with annual incomes ranging from $500,000 to $1 million, unless the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget determined that other provisions of the bill had resulted in savings to the government of more than $150 billion, according to industry officials.

Rep. Mike Ross, D-Arkansas, issued a statement on behalf of a relatively conservative Democratic group, the Blue Dog Health Care Task Force, that says the group will try to hold growth in health care costs to the general inflation rate.

“The Blue Dogs are committed to passing health care reform,” Ross says. “However, reform that does not meet the president’s goal of substantially bringing down costs is not an option.”

House Republicans have asked the Democrats to slow action on health legislation efforts.

Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the highest ranking Republican member of the House Education and Labor Committee, says Democrats “should pull back from their arbitrary deadlines for voting on an overhaul of our nation’s health care system and give members of Congress adequate time to fully assess the consequences of newly introduced legislation on jobs, small businesses, and the quality of health care in America.”