Who’s Not Moving on from Health “Reform?”
Senator Baucus was just down on the floor criticizing Sen. Roberts’ amendment to eliminate the medical device tax for pediatric devices, saying that Republicans “appear to be unable to move on.” Well, if that’s the case, then why are Democrats insisting on a vote on the Cardin amendment – which attempts to fix a drafting problem in the health care law that Senate Democrats wrote behind closed doors and passed back in March? And why does the Democrat substitute include an (unpaid-for) extension of Medicare physician payment provisions that mysteriously disappeared from the health law at the eleventh hour in an attempt to mask the legislation’s full spending? If Senator Baucus wants to move on, will he be opposing the Cardin amendment – and opposing the latest unpaid-for “doc fix?”
Senator Baucus also talked about “shared responsibility” as part of the health care law: “All Americans share – that’s about the only way we could make health care reform really work in this country.” But President Obama made a “firm pledge” that families with incomes under $250,000 would not see “any form of tax increase – not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.” Does this latest comment mean that Senator Baucus now agrees with the Congressional Budget Office that the tax on medical devices – among many other new taxes on health industries – will be “largely passed through to consumers in the form of higher premiums,” thereby breaking the President’s “firm pledge.” Is that the “shared responsibility” he believes in?