With a new Republican majority in the US House vowing to repeal Obamacare, US Senator Max Baucus is defending the bill he in large part authored.
Baucus maintains — even the better part of a year later — that voters hostile in large numbers toward the measure will warm to it as the lengthy list of provisions take effect. The bulk of the bill will last, he predicts.
The Republicans who seized control of the House in part by promising a repeal of health care overhaul won’t be able to deliver on that promise because of the huge majority needed in the Senate to break parliamentary stalemates, Baucus said.
“That does not mean it shouldn’t be changed, because it should be changed,” Baucus said. “We are going to listen to the American people.”
Baucus obviously has a full plate in front of him as Chairman of the Finance Committee- from fixing (or blocking repeal of) the health care bill to dealing with the impending tax hikes at the end of the year. So far, he is supporting a tax hike for the upper tax bracket, while his counterpart in the US House, Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT), is opposing all tax hikes.
As for changes that need to be made to the health care bill, first up: removing the 1099 provision.
The obituary is being written early for one aspect of the sweeping health care reform measure passed into law earlier this year—a provision that requires businesses to file 1099 tax forms on transactions of more than $600.
On Friday, Senator Max Baucus—the Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee—signaled his desire to see that one aspect of the law die. “I have heard small businesses loud and clear and I am responding to their concerns,” Baucus said in a statement in which he said he’d introduced legislation to repeal the 1099 requirement.