It is very seldom that the two political parties of our country join together in a bipartisan fashion. The former 1099 rule of the new health care bill, however, did just that. Many of the leaders from both parties rallied behind the cause to remove this particular rule from being mandated as part of our country’s new health care. There were also several professional organizations in support of this repeal, like the American Medical Association, the Medical Group Management Association, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Listening to the unanimous outpouring of negative sentiment, President Obama recently signed H.R. 4 into law.
This new ruling repeals the 1099 regulation that would have required all businesses to file a 1099 form in order to report any transaction over $600. The regulation was put in to the bill in order to create more tax revenue to help pay for the health care reform. It was estimated that it would have generated $2 billion per year through the next decade. Recouping this lost revenue was a temporary impasse to the passage of the repeal.
A new way to recoup the cost was eventually agreed upon by Republicans and Democrats. According to Doug Trapp with amednews.com, “The cost of the repeal will be paid for by recouping certain federal funding dedicated to expanding coverage. Some lower-income recipients of health insurance assistance under the health reform law would need to repay those subsidies if their incomes increased above a certain threshold later in the year.” Many lawmakers on either side of the aisle felt that this would have been a waste of valuable time, create unnecessary paperwork, and stifle the creation of jobs.
Saying through a statement provided by the White House, Obama made the following observation: “Small business owners are the engine of our economy and because Democrats and Republicans worked together, we can ensure they spend their time and resources creating jobs and growing their business, not filling out more paperwork.” Let’s hope that such common ground can again be found in many more facets of government.