Universal health care came one step closer to becoming a reality last week when the White House and Congressional Democrats cut a deal with union leaders over new taxes the reform would impose. Union bosses met with White House officials for days, hammering out a deal that specifies the amount of money and the dates when union members would be charged.
Under the new agreement, union members would not have to pay the tax on “Cadillac” health insurance plans until 2018—five years after the law would take affect. Union leaders worried that if the Senate health care bill became law, their members would be heavily impacted by the proposed 40 percent tax on insurance plans costing more than $8,500 for individuals and $23,000 for families. The new deal increases those numbers to $8,900 and $24,000 respectively and excludes vision and dental coverage.
The agreement now would make it possible for one family to pay thousands less each year for health care than their next-door neighbor who makes the same amount of money and has the same benefits. This is just one of many deals policy makers have cut to keep this health care legislation alive. Both parties have benefited from the deals. Louisiana Representative Anh “Joseph” Cao was the lone Republican to vote “yes” when the House approved its version of the health care bill last fall. He did so after Obama made personal promises on several health-related issues affecting his state, including federal reimbursement rates for Medicaid.
Lately the big beneficiaries of deal making have been the Democrats. In the Senate alone, there were too many deals to mention, but major headliners were the “Louisiana Purchase”, a $300 million Medicaid bribe taken by Sen. Mary Landrieu on behalf of her state, and the “cornhusker kickback”, which exempts Nebraska from ever having to pay Medicaid expansion. Senator Ben Nelson refused to cast the 60th vote needed to end a Republican filibuster, holding out for a deal that included stronger abortion language in addition to the Medicaid exemption. Taxpayers in the other states will have to pay for these concessions.
Long before Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid starting buying Congressional votes, the White House was making deals of its own. Eager to avoid the corporate opposition that ultimately forced Bill Clinton to abandon health care reform in 1993, Obama cut deals with as many stakeholders as he could, including drug manufacturers, doctors, hospitals, and insurers, all of whom stand to gain much more than they will concede if the health care bill passes.
While deal making is the norm on Capitol Hill for both parties when either side wants to get legislation passed, the wheeling and dealing on this bill is alarming due to the urgency with which the Obama administration is rushing it through. If it was good policy, all these deals wouldn’t be necessary and Obama would have come through on his promise of transparency. As it stands, it appears the biggest losers in this scenario are the American people, whose representatives, in their quest to promote a political agenda, have forgotten their purpose.
