Obama may back proposal to tax high-end health care plans

January 07, 2010|Erica Werner, Associated Press

WASHINGTON - President Obama signaled to House Democratic leaders yesterday that they will have to drop their opposition to taxing high-end health insurance plans to pay for health coverage for millions of uninsured Americans.

In a meeting at the White House, Obama expressed his preference for the insurance tax contained in the Senate’s health overhaul bill, but largely opposed by House Democrats and organized labor, said Democratic aides who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private.

House Democrats want to raise income taxes on high-income individuals instead but recognize that they will have to bend on that and other issues so that Senate majority leader Harry Reid can maintain his fragile 60-vote majority support for the bill.

Pelosi and four committee chairmen met with the president as they scrambled to resolve differences between sweeping bills passed by the House and Senate before Christmas. The aim is to finalize legislation in time for Obama’s State of the Union address early last month.

Despite the dispute over the payment approach, Pelosi emerged from the meeting expressing optimism that the House and Senate leaders are “very close’’ to an agreement.

Obama is taking a more direct role than ever, convening Oval Office meetings Tuesday and yesterday of House Democratic leaders. Under a fast-track process worked out with Obama, lawmakers are bypassing the usual negotiations between the two chambers. Instead, the House will work off the Senate’s version, amend it, and send it back to the Senate for final passage.

The bills passed by the House and Senate both would require nearly all Americans to get coverage and would provide subsidies for many who can’t afford the cost, but they differ on hundreds of details. Among them are whom to tax, how many people to cover, how to restrict taxpayer funding for abortion, and whether illegal immigrants should be allowed to buy coverage in the new markets with their own money.