Obama: FDR on Steroids! Favors "Cadillac" tax over taxing the rich.

[Karmadillo]

After all, what have the unions ever done for the Democratic Party? Is saving the rich from taxation what people meant when they said he would fix the health care bill once it was out of the Senate?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-health-obama7-2010jan07,0,4576144.story

Reporting from Washington - President Obama told top Democratic House members on Wednesday that he favored a tax on insurance companies offering more-expensive healthcare plans as a means of extending insurance to millions of people who are not covered, according to a person familiar with the meeting.

The so-called "Cadillac tax" is a feature of a healthcare bill that cleared the Senate before the Christmas holiday. But the House has chosen another financing method -- a tax hike on the wealthy.

Powerful labor unions at the core of the Democratic base are opposed to the Cadillac tax, saying that in some cases union members gave up wage increases in return for richer healthcare benefits.

Obama's preference may put pressure on the House to adopt the Senate tax as part of a compromise between the two bodies. Obama made his views known at a late-afternoon meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and other senior Democrats.

Hours earlier, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked by reporters whether Obama preferred the Senate tax or the House version. "I have not heard him weigh definitively in one versus the other," Gibbs said.

Wednesday's meeting, the second in two days, was part of a White House effort to take a more active role in healthcare negotiations as they reach their final stage. House and Senate leaders are trying to strike a compromise and send a bill to the president's desk before his State of the Union speech in the coming weeks.

The more active role is a change for the White House, which for months gave wide latitude to Congress as it shaped a bill.

more...

[MichiganVote]

1. Gee another tax on people who don't have it to give. What a change. Not.

[Captain Hilts]

2. We shouldn't be taxing healthcare. nt

[debbierlus]

3. People need to get it through their heads - Obama is NOT on our side

He has shown his cards.

This is DISGUSTING. This is worthy of George W Bush.

Call Pelosi and tell her that we will not stand for this - and call the White House and tell them that you are going to throw your support behind a primary challenger in 2012 if this does not stop NOW.

[Mari333]

4. I have called them all numerous times

problem is, I cannot give them millions of dollars. so, they politely listen and then *click*.

I might as well be talking to a lamppost.

[debbierlus]

5. Not enough people are calling and showing up.

We need a mass health care march on Washington PRONTO.

[Mari333]

10. wish that would happen

but I was at all the anti war marches during the Bush yrs in Dc and nary a peep out of the MSM. they didnt even cover it. it did nothing. and Ill be at the next anti war march on March 20 and I have a feeling the white house will ignore that , too.
Im so tired of trying to roll that huge stone up the hill.

[glitch]

13. On so many levels.

Foreign policy (aka WAR), healthcare, global climate change, "clean" coal.

Disgusted doesn't even come close to describing the feeling.

And it ain't just Obama and his administration, it's all the corporate stooges in Congress too.

:puke:

[highplainsdem]

14. "This is worthy of George W. Bush" - exactly.

[Captain Hilts]

6. It's also a disincentive to providing better care. nt

[depakid]

12. +100

The incentives in the bill lean heavily toward increasing the prevalence of high deductible, high copay junk insurance that a lot of folks won't be able to afford to use.

[varelse]

7. Finally some leadership!

Just shoot me :grr:

[laughingliberal]

8. Sure, now he shows up to fight. For a tax on middle class workers. Thanks nt

[natrat]

9. corporations will have to offer less health benefits to employees to avoid the tax

[AllentownJake]

11. This guy has become a bad joke

The awkward type that clears the room.

[jgraz]

15. To be fair, steroids do have a lot of nasty side effects.

Including shrinking your balls. Just sayin...

[JoeyT]

16. I'd swear I remember Candidate Obama

insisting health care was going to be paid for by taxing people making over a quarter mil a year and other things that hit further up the ladder. I keep thinking I'm remembering things wrong, but it's just too damned easy to Google and read stuff from a year ago.

[freddie mertz]

18. He said that in the debates, when he OPPOSED this regressive, anti-working people tax.

But he's "changed" since then, and is now working HARD to UNDERMINE the House bill that supports his campaign promise!

[jgraz]

17. I'd love to see some of Obama's perennial defenders speak to this.

What possible reason would Obama have to push this ridiculous policy?

[Kansas Wyatt]

19. Maybe Obama thinks he can get re-elected without the Unions?

Well well well, Obama thinks GOTV and Union support have nothing in common and shoots himself in the foot AGAIN.

The Unions need to threaten yanking all support to him and the Republican Lite Party in favor of a TRUE Progressive Party that will represent them.

[bvar22]

20. Fucking McCain campaigned on taxing "Cadillac Plans"

Obama strongly OPPOSED this during the campaign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8wmN3wvhNM&feature=player_embedded


Another one bites the dust.

[inna]

21. Disgusting. Interestingly, he's acting almost as if he doesn't care

what it looks like anymore. It's like there is no more need to even bother pretending that he supposedly represents the regular, working American people.

Darn.