Paying For Health Care Reform--It's Been There All Along

Remember a year ago during the Presidential campaign? How many times did you hear Candidate Obama emphatically say that he would not raise taxes on the middle class--and in particular, those Americans making $250,000 or less would not see one dime of increase in their taxes?

Every day before the election, he talked about the need to repeal the Bush Tax Cuts--those income tax cuts that gave major tax reductions to the upper 1%. There was great populist support for that concept among the remaining 99% of Americans. After all, the previous 8 years had resulted in the accumulation of enormous personal wealth for the upper 1% and a corresponding huge deficit for our Federal budget and an historically large national debt.

So, what happened to THE campaign promise? Why don't we ever hear about repealing the Bush Tax Cuts anymore?

That brings me to the Baucus Bill. In its present form, it violates the primary campaign promise that the President made, by imposing a tax increase on the middle class. Anyone who makes less than $250,000, but has a health insurance benefit valued at more than $8,000 would be taxed. Period.

In its original form, the Baucus Bill mandates that we all buy health insurance, and those who don't purchase health insurance would have to pay an excise tax. Don't try to talk around it Mr. President, it is written in to the bill! Read it and say you won't sign anything like that.

President Obama cannot support the Baucus Bill or it will violate his primary promise to the middle class--he will raise EVERYONE'S TAXES.

Wait, it gets worse--and the President's message gets fuzzier.

Everyone wants to know "How are we going to pay for health care reform?" It's going to cost upwards of a trillion dollars over 10 years.

The President talks about two-thirds of it being "paid for" by money saved in eliminating fraud, waste and inefficiencies in the system. I'm all for that. It sounds great, but it's also too theoretical for my taste. I'm not alone. There are many on the Republican side of the isle who question how much will be produced from these new efficiency efforts that will actually "pay" for the bill and not increase the deficit (another promise).

Frankly, finding more than 600 billion dollars of savings in this manner is too vague of a concept for most average Americans to wrap their heads around. In short, as a result, they don't believe the President.

We wouldn't have to guess as to how to pay for health care reform if the source of the funding was the repeal of the Bush Tax Cuts. 100% of us are very familiar with that concept--we heard it almost daily for most of the last 2 years. I'll bet that most of the lower 99% would easily get on board with it as a way to pay for the reform of health care.

It would be easy to understand that taxes are going up on the upper 1%-- to the same rates that they were when Bill Clinton was President (but, they would still be lower than when Ronald Reagan was President). That's a really simple concept that's easy to understand and measure.

It's time to lead on this Mr. President. Forget the nuances and the gimmicks. Remember your promises and keep them.