House health care surtax would hit just three-tenths of 1 percent of all households.

[flpoljunkie]

(The Republicans have already started their 'big tax increase' meme. Just who are they protecting? This 5.4% surtax would only apply to the modified AGI in excess of $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for joint filers. This compares to the 40% excise tax on amounts over $8,000 for an individual and $21,000 for a famiily. This tax will hurt moderate income Americans in just a few years and will be passed down to policyholders by the insurance companies.)

The new bill, like an earlier version, retains a surtax on high-income people, but increases the thresholds. The tax would hit married couples with adjusted gross incomes exceeding $1 million a year and individuals over $500,000 — just three-tenths of 1 percent of all households, Democrats said.

Ms. Pelosi can describe the proposal as a “millionaires’ tax.” The original thresholds were $280,000 for individuals and $350,000 for couples.

The government insurance plan would negotiate rates with doctors and hospitals (region by region), as private insurers do. Payments would not be based on Medicare rates, as Ms. Pelosi had wanted. Democrats from rural areas balked at the use of Medicare rates, saying they were so low that hospitals could not survive on them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/health/policy/29health.html?hp

[rucky]

1. Get ready for the "they're gonna raise yer taxes!" TV news onslaught.

if it hasn't happened already.

[Ozymanithrax]

2. I am happy to pay more taxes, if it is necessary to bring health care...

to more Americans.

Now, if I only made enough money to be required to pay that tax.

[flpoljunkie]

3. If only!

[uponit7771]

5. You'd be required to pay a whole 500+ more a year in taxes which = < 45$ a mouth

...and that would just break the bank so...let the less than 1% protest.

[Ozymanithrax]

7. Which is nothing. I"d be happy to pay it now...

I woiuld do so without blinking.

[stray cat]

4. taxing good health plans in addition would spread the responsibility

I don't like the idea because I might have to pay alot but thats actually the way a universal coverage system would work as well - some get better care and others care decreases but it ends up close to equal.

[TheKentuckian]

8. Nobody worried about spreading the prosperity when we've slashed the taxes

of fatcats over the past generation while deflating our standard of living. We didn't spread the prosperity of hundreds of billions and even trillions to Wall St. We haven't spread the prosperity of a half trillion a year into the military industrial complex or the additional money for the wars.

Who gives a box of cat turds about spreading the responsibility?!?

Let the corporate communists put back into the system instead of hijacking the wealth of the nation and pissing it into sand and gravel.

It seems the concerns for fairness only work one way. The poor can eat dirt but don't put the robberbarons out, they might take their bootstraps over the seas if they get squeezed out of the new yacht for this season.

Responsibility comes with power and resources. That ain't us.

[safeinOhio]

6. I would hope that the price limit

would be indexed for inflation.