Rapid City blogger and columnist John Tsitrian gets his blog post from last Thursday praising Senator Mike Rounds for a brief flash of independent thinking promoted to this morning’s Rapid City Journal. Last week Senator Rounds joined Maine Senator Susan Collins in saying the GOP health care plan should leave in place a 3.8% surtax imposed by the Affordable Care Act on net investment income for individuals making over $200K and couples topping $250K. The Senate bill, like the House bill, would repeal this tax, decreasing federal revenues by $172 billion over ten years. Rounds floated a proposal for using that money to help Americans get health insurance instead of helping the rich get richer:
Rounds called for using the savings to expand tax credits for Americans who are currently ineligible for assistance because their spouses have employer plans that don’t cover them. The South Dakota Republican said GOP leaders have told him the proposal would receive a CBO analysis.
“If we could make a change in that, I really think we could help millions of people,” Rounds told reporters after a Republican lunch discussion. “These are folks who get nothing” [Laura Litvan, Steven T. Dennis, and Sahil Kapur, “Corker Says GOP to Scrap Health Bill’s Investment Tax Repeal,” Bloomberg, updated 2017.06.29].
Tsitrian says Rounds’s suggestion is a welcome change from his past “platitudinous recitations of Republican talking points“:
…Rounds has not only shown a streak of independence, he’s actually put a pretty good idea on the table. That he did so at the risk of isolating himself from his party’s leaders shows some moxie that should cheer every South Dakotan who wants a representative who can think for himself. It might also serve as a useful lesson to Noem and Thune, whose politically ingratiating styles could use a dose of intellectual self-reliance [John Tsitrian, “Attaway, Mike! Rounds Finally Shows Some Moxie,” The Constant Commoner, 2017.06.29].
Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and bob Corker of Tennessee have also signaled their recognition that leaving this tax on the wealthy in place could tamp back complaints from Democrats and town hall attendees that the Republican health care plans are really wealthcare plans. But don’t expect Rounds and friends to resolve this issue right away when they return from their week-plus Fourth of July recess; CNN says negotiations will take weeks.
Too bad Rounds isn’t acting on his convictions or conscience. He is probably reacting to negative press about the repeal of Obamacare. Virtually no one polled supports Drumpf taxcuts for the wealthy.
I agree with MIke from Iowa. He just wants to get re-elected. I wonder who give him the idea. He is not that smart
Sharing Sam’s skepticism about Rounds’s independent intelligence, I agree that keeping the 3.8% surtax isn’t Rounds’s original idea. It’s more likely part of a larger scheme by leadership to test the water for ways to get 51 votes.
Rounds is an opportunist. The exodus of 17 or so insurance companies from South Dakota that NOem and Rounds have spoken of, started under Governor Janklow. Rounds was in the Senate at the time when the insurance division declared that 80% of the premium collected would go to pay claims. The insurance company’s that left, would not change their business plans to abide by the insurance division’s new rules, so they left. Most, if not all, were stock companies that were beholding to their investors, so there is that. Premium rates started ticking upwards quickly.
Legislative Rounds became Governor Rounds and the ruling by the Insurance Division did not change under his governorship for his entire term. Governor Rounds watched the departure of the 17 or so insurance company’s from his office and complained not one tiny bit. In fact, his bottom line became larger without the competition of those 17 or so companies against the insurance company that he wholesaled for. BTW, the directive that the South Dakota Division of Insurance put out, is now called, the Medical Loss Ratio. NOem’s and Rounds complaint about the insurance company’s leaving can be directly attributed to them both as she herself, was in the legislature hierarchy. She can hardly claim ignorance of what was happening and blame it onto President Obama and the ACA/Obamacare, as that horse had already left the barn much earlier.
What made South Dakota such a leader in this well thought out plan was that in Mitt Romney’s Romney Care package for Massachusetts, this Medical Loss Ration was a big part of the plan. Mitt Romney’s plan was presented to President George W. Bush for approval and was granted that approval, as well as the funding, so that Massachusetts would become the first state to adopt what was to become the ACA/Obamacare in 2006. The all Republican plan that was presented and approved had these same line items as the 2010 ACA/Obamacare does nationwide, including individual mandates (to prevent free riders, Mitt Romney) and Medicaid Expansion. https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2012/07/pdf/romneyu_romneycare2.pdf
The truth is, Republicans have gotten themselves into the dog catches car story. They must do something as they have spent 8 years of doing nothing and counting by the “repeal and replace” mantra of falsehoods. ACA/Obamacare is the right start for healthcare with a couple of things missing that were taken out, like the Risk Corridor. That was a big deal that needs to be added back in with the losses incurred for those promised adverse claims, paid back to the insurance company’s.