As it drew close to finishing work on a healthcare overhaul, a key Senate panel engaged in a debate about whether the measure is "riddled" with tax increases that would violate President Obama's campaign pledge not to raise taxes on middle-class Americans. Republicans cited that vow in attempting to strip billions of dollars in fees and taxes from the reform package, according to the Washington Post.
The Senate Finance Committee voted to soften the impact of financial penalties that would be imposed on people who did not obtain insurance under healthcare legislation. Members of the committee changed the bill to exempt an estimated two million people who would face financial burdens in buying even the cheapest insurance available. Lawmakers delayed and reduced the penalties for others.
A billionaire Los Angeles pharmaceutical executive has donated $100 million to St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, CA. The gift from Patrick Soon-Shiong, founder and chief executive of Los Angeles-based Abraxis BioScience Inc., and his wife, Michele Chan, a former actress, is one of the largest received by a community hospital in California. About $35 million has already been spent on the expanded and renovated 380-bed hospital, and $10 million more to attract doctors and scientists. That leaves $55 million to create several research centers and fund future projects, said St. John's Chief Executive Lou Lazatin.
More than 660,000 seniors next year will lose the private Medicare plans they now have because some insurers are dropping coverage in response to tougher federal requirements. Most of those beneficiaries are enrolled in a type of Medicare Advantage plan called Private Fee for Service, where enrollment has surged from about 820,000 three years ago to more than 2.44 million. The high cost of PFFS plans led Congress to vote in 2008 to require the plans to establish networks of providers beginning in 2011.
Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee voted to encourage limits on the compensation of insurance executives, responding to charges that expanding health insurance coverage would enrich insurance companies. Voting 14-8, the committee approved an amendment that would limit the tax deductibility of compensation for insurance executives to $500,000 a year. The limit would apply to executives at companies that get significant business generated by the bill's mandate that nearly all Americans must have insurance. Under current law, businesses can deduct up to $1 million a year in compensation for executives, reports the Wall Street Journal.
In the scramble to find money to overhaul the healthcare system, Senate Democrats have been eyeing the most generous insurance "Cadillac" plans as a lucrative target to tax. But as the competing proposals are debated, few people can agree on exactly what constitutes a Cadillac plan, according to the Washington Post.