海角大神

President Obama鈥檚 new would impose a new 鈥減ayroll鈥� tax on investment income, and keep a watered-down version of the Senate proposal to tax high-cost health plans.

In his new health package, based largely on the Senate鈥檚 version of reform, the President lays out for the first time his own specific design. And to help pay for a broad expansion of insurance coverage, he includes several . The two biggest: He鈥檇 increase by 0.9 percentage point the Medicare tax for households with incomes over $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for joint filers. In addition, he鈥檇 impose a 2.9 percent tax on these same households on interest, dividends, annuities, and most other

The President has also endorsed the Senate proposal to tax , but in his version the levy would not kick in until 2018, rather than 2013. It is designed as an excise tax on insurers, but is widely expected to result in reduced benefits for employees. In the Obama version, the excise tax would apply only to premiums above $27,500 for families and $10,200 for singles (the Senate bill limits were $23,000 and $8,500) and would be adjusted by the consumer price index plus one percentage point thereafter. As a result, the tax would slowly bite more workers since health care costs (and thus insurance premiums) have historically grown much faster.

The fate of the Obama plan is unknown. It will be the major topic of discussion at Thursday鈥檚 health summit, although there is little reason to believe the GOP, which has opposed all the key elements of the Obama plan for the past year, will embrace any of these ideas.

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