by Richard Eskow | Dec 16, 2009 | Blog
I just put up a piece in The Huffington Post outlining what I consider 10 myths or assumptions that are currently being used to weaken resistance to the current draft of the Senate bill. While the post isn't exclusively about the excise tax, the tax does come up at...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 15, 2009 | Blog
That somebody is Kate Pickert, who wrote about the excise tax at TIME's "Swampland" blog. Editors will be editors, so we can't necessarily blame her for the piece's misleading title: "Who Should Pay for Health Care Reform - the Rich or the Richly Insured?" But she...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 15, 2009 | Blog
I have a piece up on my own blog which challenges numbers-whiz Nate Silver for his takedown of progressives. He doesn't think they should be fighting for a better health bill, and that they should be delighted with the one that's expected to pass the Senate. Warning:...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 14, 2009 | Blog
The $149 billion number - the amount of revenue the CBO estimates the excise tax will bring in - has becoming gospel in Washington. But there's a very good chance the number is overstated, possibly by tens of billions of dollars, and the mistake seems to have been...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 14, 2009 | Blog
The battle to resist the excise tax continue, with a front line of resistance forming in the House and Senate. Efforts include the movement to drum up support for the Sanders-Franken-Brown Amendment, which replaces it with a high-earner tax similar to that contained...