WASHINGTON BUREAU — The White House is waiting to set a firm date for the annual State of the Union address, in the hope that President Obama will be able to talk about congressional passage of a major health care reform bill.
Robert Gibbs, the president's spokesman, assured the nation Friday during a press briefing that the speech would not be broadcast Feb. 2, when ABC is set to start the final season of the series "Lost."
But, when asked about what the date of the address would be, Gibbs said only that, "We'll announce something soon."
Gibbs made his comments as presidential advisers and Democrats from the House and Senate continued to work on reconciling differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill.
The conventional wisdom is that the final bill will cost about as much as H.R. 3962, the House bill — $1.5 trillion — but would rely on the taxes proposed in H.R. 3950, the Senate bill.
The Senate bill includes features such as a Medicare payroll tax that would be imposed on high-income workers.
The Senate bill also includes a "Cadillac plan tax," or 40% excise tax on insurers that sell high-value health benefits packages. The Senate Cadillac plan tax benefits package value threshold for most active workers would be $8,500 for individuals and $23,000 for families. The threshold would be higher for retirees and for employees in high-risk fields, such as law enforcement.
Union leaders have been waging an all-out campaign against the tax.
"Instead of taxing the rich," as the House bill does, "the Senate bill taxes the middle class by taxing workers' health plans," Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, Washington, said today at the National Press Club.
Democrats in the House are supporting the unions.
In related news, Richard Foster, the chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has estimated that, if H.R. 3950, the Senate's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act were implemented as written, the number of individuals with employer-sponsored health coverage might be about 161 million in 2019.
If current law prevails, the number of individuals with employer-sponsored coverage might be about 166 million, Foster estimates.
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