Why Healthcare Reform Will Fail, Again

We are seeing a repeat of the healthcare fiasco we saw during the Clinton administration. The idea of raising taxes in the midst of a severe recession, especially when hundreds of billions of tax dollars were spent to bail out Wall St., is a mistake. This is a gift to the Republicans as a campaign issue. It reinforces the idea that this administration's spending is out of control. Timing is all bad and so is the cost. We can't afford it in present proposal format. Any healthcare reform should save money not increase the government cost.

House Democrats agreed yesterday to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for a sweeping expansion of the nation's health-care system, proposing a surtax on the highest earners that could send the top federal tax rate toward 45 percent.

Beginning in 2011, the plan would target all income over $350,000 a year for families and $280,000 a year for individuals, Democratic sources said. The surtax would start at 1 percent, rise to around 1.5 percent for families earning more than $500,000, then step up again, to around 3 percent, for families earning more than $1 million, Democrats said.

That would raise about $550 billion over the next decade, Democrats said -- about half the cost of reforms that are expected to cost about $1 trillion. The surtax percentages could rise two years later, they added, if lawmakers think additional cash is needed to cover the cost of health-care reform.