Beyond Blair House: Discussion of public option, 'Cadillac tax' continue

As lawmakers and President Obama discuss health care at the Blair House summit, news reports ply two policy issues in the latest overhaul proposal, the public option and the "Cadillac tax."

Roll Call: "House liberals are still holding out hope that health care reform can include a public insurance option, even though the issue isn't even on the agenda at President Barack Obama's high-profile health care summit Thursday." Dozens liberal House members and 24 Democratic senators have joined in suggesting that Congress pass the public option through reconciliation rules, which would dodge a filibuster, but Republicans continue to resist it (Bendery, 2/25).

CQ Today: "President Obama's proposed changes to an excise tax on high-cost health insurance plans would reduce the 10-year revenue from that provision of the health care overhaul by 78 percent, compared with the version the Senate passed in December, according to a preliminary analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation." Obama's plan pushes the tax back until 2018, so less of the revenue is counted in the ten year period for which the committee scores legislation (Rubin, 2/25).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.