Nov

CNY Reps Vote for Health Care Bill – ‘With Reservations’

Dan Maffei

Knowing the House health care bill isn’t popular here at home, Reps. Dan Maffei (NY25) and Michael Arcuri (NY24) hemmed and hawed leading up to the vote last night, only to toe the party line. The funniest part is Maffei’s lame explanation. He isn’t happy about some of the taxes (the medical device tax will hurt Welch Allyn - a large CNY employer) and the mandates on small businesses.

But it isn’t so much the excessive taxation that bothers Maffei, it’s the fact that it isn’t socialistic enough.

Maffei told the president he was concerned about the bill’s penalties for those businesses that fail to provide employer-mandated health insurance to workers. The freshman congressman said the penalty of 8 percent of total payroll would hurt businesses with low margins, and instead should be based on the total profit of a business.

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Finally, Maffei said he told the president he had hoped for a public health insurance option that would have provided stiffer competition to private insurance plans.

“I would have preferred a more robust public option, but that just doesn’t seem possible politically right now,” Maffei said.

Of course, Michael Arcuri agreed with his comrade colleague. They believe it’s best to tax the life out of profitable businesses, and make sure more and more Americans are dependent on the likes of them.

Dan Maffei will be tough to beat next year. Not because he’s doing a good job or representing the people in his dictrict, but because he’s amassed a huge war chest from liberal special interests.

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