House Health-Care Proposal Adds $600 Billion in Taxes

Health-care overhaul legislation being drafted by House Democrats will include $600 billion in tax increases and $400 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel said.

Democrats will work on the bill’s details next week as they struggle through “what kind of heartburn” it will cause to agree on how to pay for revamping the health-care system, Rangel, a New York Democrat, said today. The measure’s cost is reaching well beyond the $634 billion President Barack Obama proposed in his budget request to Congress as a 10-year down payment for the policy changes.

The government coffers are empty. Hang on to your wallets because Uncle Sam needs you. In order to fund the health care legislation being contemplated by Obama and Ted Kennedy, the strapped taxpayers will have to cough up some of those dollars they've been refusing to spend on Chinese imports. Senior citizens will be asked to contribute by postponing a few of those unnecessary doctor vists and surgeries.