Senate Likely To Keep Obamacare Taxes

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By Robert Donachie

Republican senators trying to repeal former President Barack Obama’s landmark health care legislation are coming around to the idea of keeping Obamacare taxes.

The change in sentiment is an effort to delay draconian cuts to certain features of the system, like Medicaid expansion.

Moderate Republicans in the Senate were the first to float the idea of keeping Obamacare’s taxes, Reuters reports. The same group is increasingly weary of conservative Republicans in the Senate who are pushing for steep, drastic cuts to Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion program. Amid the bickering between the moderate and conservative members, Republicans are trying to get their version of the American Health Care Act up for a vote before the June 30.

If moderates continue to push for keeping Obamacare’s taxes, they will surely draw flack from conservatives senators and voters who want Obamacare fully repealed as soon as possible. Forty-seven Conservative groups, led by Americans for Tax Reform, sent a letter to Sen. Orin Hatch of Utah urging senators to repeal all Obamacare taxes.

The Obamacare taxes slated for the chopping block include the “Cadillac tax,” a tax on health insurance premiums and the medical device tax. All of these taxes imposed negative externalities on the medical industry in some form. For example, after the medical device tax took effect, the medical device and related industries lost in excess of 28,000 jobs, American Action Forum reports.

The tax that is speculated to remain is the net investment income tax, which levies a 3.8 percent surtax on capital gains, interest and dividends, Reuters reports.