The taxes on tobacco have already been increased and a proposal has been put forward to increase taxes on alcohol, to raise $62 billion over the decade.
Also, a new tax on sugary drinks, like soda, is to be introduced to further raise $52 billion. A rise in business taxes and accounting charges could raise an additional $30 billion.
Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for the OMB, said cost cuts and tax increases amount to "a plan which gets you really close to what you need".
The voluntary insurance program hopes to pay least $50 daily to people to cover their nursing home expenses.
"Congress has other ideas," Baer said. "We'll work with them."
Subsidy cuts to hospitals
The U.S. hospitals have reached an agreement with the administration to accept $100 billion less from the government's Medicare and Medicaid schemes.
Announcing the agreement on Wednesday, Vice-President Joe Biden said, "Folks, reform is coming… It's on track. It's coming."
The hospitals have also agreed to forgo $40 billion in government subsidies received for giving emergency treatment to the people who are uninsured.
Debate over healthcare plan
Obama has yet not offered a detailed plan on healthcare. His advisers are working with lawmakers to craft proposals.
A number of proposals have been discussed in Congress without conclusive agreement on what reforms should take place.
Senate Democrats this week discarded the suggestion by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., to tax health benefits.
According to tax experts, it is implausible for Americans to get free benefits.
“We're all going to have to contribute," said Eugene Steuerle, a former treasury official in the Reagan administration and now the vice president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
“The dilemma is trying to do the new while the old is still unpaid for," he added.
Medical cost is skyrocketing
Medical cost is skyrocketing and it is battering family budgets and threatening American standard of living. People are up in arms over HR 3200, and maybe they should be. HR 3200 is a health care bill, and what it does is that it will provide affordable health care for all, and curtail medical costs. It also makes it mandatory for all Americans to have health insurance, but creates a government run (taxpayer funded) alternative to private insurance, prohibits exclusion on basis of pre-existing condition, and then (here's the kicker) places a surtax on all households that earn more than $350,000 to pay for it. (To be fair, they don't need sympathy.) The bill HR 3200 is likely to be wildly unpopular, even if it might mean fewer people needing emergency cash loans to see a doctor.
Heres an idea...
STOP wasting billions of dollars on an endless war on the other side of the planet.
STOP wasting billions of dollars on an endless and ineffective drug war on our own citizens here at home...
and we will have money for health care, for education and for infrastructure repair that is SO desperately needed in this country!
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