While the repeal of the heath care bill as a whole failed to pass yesterday (all the Democrats voted against the repeal/all Republicans voted for repeal), a separate amendment to the bill (S.AMDT.9) passed easily with an 81-17 margin.
The primary purpose to this amendment was to repeal the portion of the bill that expanded the 1099 reporting requirements to a level that would have easily crippled many businesses – especially hitting smaller businesses hard. Generally speaking, without the repeal, the current 1099 rules would have expanded to include payments made to corporations and payments made for tangible goods. Think of all of the Corporations that you deal with on a daily basis – like Wal-mart, Staple’s, Harris Teeter (or other grocer). All of these would have required a 1099 if you paid them more than $600 in the year. There are also a lot of details that I won’t go into because now that it is repealed, it is a mute point. Just be happy as a small business owner that you don’t have to do this! It would have been really expensive and/or time consuming to administer.
I can’t imagine why any Senator would vote against the repeal of this provision in its current state. It is over reaching and cumbersome. It would have been nearly impossible for the average business to fully conform to the law. It would have been a nightmare to enforce. And at the end of the day, it accomplished nothing in its current state. There would have been tons of double reporting and the numbers reported to the IRS would mean less than the ones they get now. Nonetheless, these 17 Senators voted against the repeal:
Akaka (D-HI)
Carper (D-DE)
Durbin (D-IL)
Franken (D-MN)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
As far as the Health Care Act as a whole, many Senators, including South Carolina’s own Lindsey Graham, have vowed to continue their fight to repeal the bill – in whole or in part. Along with Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, Senator Graham introduced The State Health Care Choice Act that would allow states to ‘opt-out’ of Obamacare. This is far from passage and as you might imagine it will be a long and hard fight before there is closure on the Obamacare issue.