Subject: POLITICO Playbook: Knowing the next chief, and what’s coming up on health care
From: "Anna Palmer Jake Sherman Daniel Lippman" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2018 09:34:29 -0600
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Presented by the National Association of Manufacturers: Playbook is POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the day                Dec 16, 2018 View in browser                   
 By Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman and Daniel Lippman 
         
Presented by
                   DRIVING THE DAY      
SNEAK PEEK ... THE PRESIDENT'S WEEK ... Monday: PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP will have lunch with VP Mike Pence. Tuesday: Trump will host a roundtable on the Federal Commission on School Safety Report. Wednesday: Trump will have lunch with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

THE GOVERNMENT SHUT DOWN begins Friday. Neither the House nor the Senate have passed a spending bill. The president is scheduled to go on a 16-day vacation at Mar-a-Lago on Friday.

WAPO'S ERICA WERNER, DAMIAN PALETTA and LISA REIN: "The White House and a number of federal agencies have started advanced preparations for a partial government shutdown, as President Trump and congressional Democrats appear unlikely to resolve their fight over a border wall before some government funding lapses at week's end.

"GOP leaders are scrambling to find a short-term alternative that could stave off a shutdown, which would start on Dec. 22 absent a deal. But White House officials signaled to lawmakers Friday that they would probably not support a one- or two-week stopgap measure. Some congressional Republicans support such a 'continuing resolution,' but the White House rejection has dramatically increased the odds of a spending lapse." WaPo

QUITE THE LEAD, via WaPo's David Fahrenthold, Matt Zapotosky and Seung Min Kim: "Two years after Donald Trump won the presidency, nearly every organization he has led in the past decade is under investigation." WaPo

CLICKER ... SNL LAST NIGHT - "It's a Wonderful Trump Cold Open": "Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) gets his wish to have never been president granted and sees how the lives of Michael Cohen (Ben Stiller), Brett Kavanaugh (Matt Damon), Robert Mueller (Robert De Niro) and more have changed in an alternate reality." 9-min. video

-- @realDonaldTrump at 8:58 a.m.: "A REAL scandal is the one sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can't be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion?"

ON MULVANEY ... 

-- ELIANA JOHNSON, RACHAEL BADE, BEN WHITE and NANCY COOK: "'He would have given up a very valuable appendage to get that job': Mick Mulvaney has angled for months to be Donald Trump's chief of staff. Now what happens?": "He had a backup plan, too, pitching himself as a potential successor to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in the event Mnuchin had been tapped to be Trump's chief of staff. ... The failures of his predecessors and the daunting year ahead did not deter Mulvaney, who, according to several current and former White House officials, has spent several months openly lobbying for the job. Reports that he was uninterested in the job, these people said, were in fact an effort to
 increase his chances of landing it by playing hard to get. ... 

"White House aides say he is unlikely to attempt to reform the president's habits of spending much of his time watching television and tweeting, or to curtail the influence of Trump's daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, on the policymaking process. ... [S]ome conservatives on the Hill see him as a sellout, a ladder-climber who puts career advancement over principle. ... Mulvaney allies argue that he's done the best he can given the president he serves and advanced conservative priorities where he can." POLITICO

-- NYMAG'S OLIVIA NUZZI, "The Impossible Job: How John Kelly Failed to Tame the West Wing": "Mulvaney does have one advantage: He has demonstrated his loyalty to the president since the beginning. 'It's cultish. It's Stockholm syndrome,' said one person close to the White House. 'There's this thing that's set in of a bunker mentality. There's less infighting because of the bunker mentality.' Nevertheless, as the incoming Democratic Congress prepares to challenge Trump, and various law enforcement investigations draw ever closer to him, it seems unlikely that Mulvaney will be able to do much to change the place. ...

"'[Kelly] would come into a meeting and say, "You're probably going to leak this,"' the first former senior White House official said. 'I don't think he ever really understood how it actually worked. It was kind of weird that the people he gravitated towards in terms of becoming his allies were some of the most prolific leakers.'" NY Mag

NEXT UP AT INTERIOR ... BEN LEFEBVRE: "Zinke's likely replacement has been 'the man behind the curtain'": "Like former EPA chief Scott Pruitt before him, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has an experienced deputy steeped in the world of bureaucratic infighting ready to fill his shoes - one with longstanding ties to the energy industry he now regulates. 

"Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for the oil, gas and water industries that rely on Interior's decisions, is poised to become acting secretary following President Donald Trump's announcement Saturday that Zinke will leave by the end of the year.

"And that's already alarming environmentalists, some of whom had said they might prefer to see a distracted, scandal-plagued Zinke stay in the job. Bernhardt, who joined the Trump administration last year, has taken the lead in softening the department's protections for endangered species, a move that will make it easier for oil and gas companies to drill on ecologically sensitive lands. 'He knows how to make that agency work and he is why Interior is now considered 'best in class' in terms of agency performance,' said Stephen Brown, a lobbyist at RBJ Strategies." POLITICO

A message from the National Association of Manufacturers:
 
End the HIT now! Americans already struggle with rising health care costs. Congress must protect Americans from the Health Insurance Tax (HIT), the Medical Device Tax and the "Cadillac" Tax. After 2019, the HIT will impact approximately 140 million Americans, increasing health care costs for manufacturers and workers. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3d754b16217563677f3c6fa54129c71026990896c133e70d58184a09e6443aafe814f3b9fd4a8837ffe9eef240d3a208
         
ON HEALTH CARE ... 

-- PAUL DEMKO and ADAM CANCRYN: "GOP feels heat in wake of Obamacare ruling: 'It's all the downsides'": "The decision spells bad news for Republicans, by allowing Democrats to replay a potent health care message that helped them flip 40 House seats: the GOP remains hellbent on gutting Obamacare and rolling back protections for pre-existing conditions." POLITICO

-- NYT'S SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, ROBERT PEAR and ABBY GOODNOUGH: "The Democrats' first step will be in the courts; aides to Representative Nancy Pelosi, the top House Democrat, said Saturday that House Democrats would move quickly to notify the Trump administration that they intended to intervene in the case. A vote on a resolution to do so is expected in the earliest days of the new Congress." NYT

-- CHUCK TODD spoke with SENATE MINORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER on NBC's "MEET THE PRESS": SCHUMER: "The first thing we're going to do when we get back there in the Senate is urge, put a vote on the floor urging an intervention in the case. ... A lot of this depends on Congressional intent, and if a majority of the House, and a majority of the Senate say that this case should be overturned it will have a tremendous effect on the appeal. So our first stop is the courts. We believe this should be overturned. It's an awful, awful decision."

-- JAKE TAPPER spoke with SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-MAINE) on CNN'S "STATE OF THE UNION": TAPPER: "You heard President Trump call this 'a great ruling for our country.' Do you agree?" COLLINS: "I don't. First of all, I would probably any doubt that this ruling is not going to affect people who are currently enrolled or in Obamacare policies, so -- or their policies for 2019. 

"There is widespread support for protecting people with preexisting conditions. There's also widespread opposition to the individual mandate. And here's why. The individual mandate penalties, 80 percent were paid by people -- 80 percent of the people who paid the penalty earned under $50,000 a year.

"So, this hurt low- and middle-income families who couldn't afford the cost of health insurance. And it's telling that, when the tax bill was on the floor, not a single Democratic senator offered an amendment to strike the repeal of the individual mandate. That's how unpopular it was.I think this will be overturned on appeal."

BRIAN FALER, "A holy mess: Churches, other nonprofits confront parking tax": "Republicans' tax overhaul is going to have religious leaders across the country suddenly contemplating the finer points of their parking lots. Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the parking benefits that churches, synagogues, hospitals, colleges and other nonprofits offer their employees are now taxable. That's causing headaches for nonprofit administrators trying to figure out complicated new rules that can require them to calculate everything from snow removal costs to what percent of spaces are used by employees. ...

"'All over America - it's no longer going to say, "This space reserved for Pastor Smith,"' predicts Steven Woolf, senior tax policy counsel for the Jewish Federations of North America. 'Those signs will be coming down.'" POLITICO

THE INVESTIGATIONS - "The Special Counsel Is Fighting a Witness in Court. Who Is It?" by NYT's Mike Schmidt

-- WAPO'S SEUNG MIN KIM: "'Stop,' 'I wasn't there,' 'I don't know anything about that': Republicans dodge or dismiss Trump's legal woes": "'Oh, I don't know anything about that,' Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) said, as a reporter tried to ask him about Trump denying that he directed Cohen to pay women in exchange for keeping quiet about their sexual encounters with the now-president. 'I don't know anything except what I hear and read about all that.' 'Stop,' Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said. 

"'I have not heard what you told me he said. Until I read, actually read, what the president said, I won't comment on it.' 'Honestly, I don't think that's a fair question,' said Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.), when asked if he believed Trump's explanation. 'I wasn't there. I don't have any way of assessing that.'" WaPo

-- CHRIS WALLACE spoke to RUDY GIULIANI on "FOX NEWS SUNDAY": WALLACE: "Is the special counsel going to interview the president?" GIULIANI: "Yeah good luck, good luck after what they did to Flynn, the way they trapped him into perjury and no sentence for him. Fourteen days for Papadopoulos I did better on traffic violations than they did with Papadopoulos. They're a joke." WALLACE: "So there's no way?" GIULIANI: "Over my dead body"

MICHAEL COHEN TO THE HILL IN JAN.? ... REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D-MD.) to JAKE TAPPER on CNN'S "STATE OF THE UNION": "I'm hoping that Mr. Cohen will come before the Congress, where he can tell the American public exactly what he has been saying to Mueller and others, without interfering with the Mueller investigation. 

"I think the American people just voted for transparency and integrity in our hearings. They want to hear from him. And I certainly would like to see him come in the month of January to -- before the Congress, and so that the people's representatives will have an opportunity to ask him questions."

FOR YOUR RADAR -- "World's nations agree on rules to implement Paris climate deal," by POLITICO Europe's Kalina Oroschakoff and Paola Tamma in Katowice, Poland: "After two weeks of tense negotiations, nearly 200 governments agreed late Saturday on a rulebook to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement. The final deal is a careful balance between the interests of rich nations keen on robust transparency and reporting rules to track emissions, emerging countries aiming to protect their economic interests, and poor and vulnerable nations depending on greater financial support to address climate impacts. ...

"But it falls short of the radical action that many climate scientists say needs to happen to prevent global warming from wreaking havoc on the planet. Decades of climate talks have run into the same problem - the measures needed to rein in climate change are politically unpalatable. The summit held in Poland's coal capital of Katowice was no different." POLITICO Europe

A message from the National Association of Manufacturers:
 
End the HIT now! Americans already struggle with rising health care costs. Congress must protect Americans from the Health Insurance Tax (HIT), the Medical Device Tax and the "Cadillac" Tax. After 2019, the HIT will impact approximately 140 million Americans, increasing health care costs for manufacturers and workers. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3d754b1621756367dbbfa0e4d554942edf9cf6ffd21977760b1e61da6626a99eb6f308a1ad01d69250315a9649961015
         
2020 WATCH - "Iowa Poll: Biden, Sanders top early look at possible Democratic hopefuls in 2020 caucuses," by Des Moines Register's Brianne Pfannenstiel: "Nearly half of poll respondents in the first-in-the-nation presidential caucus state - 49 percent - say the right person to defeat Trump should be a 'seasoned political hand' rather than a 'newcomer.' ... Thirty-two percent of respondents say [Biden] is their first choice for president. Sanders ... follows Biden with 19 percent." Des Moines Register

DALLAS MORNING NEWS' TODD GILLMAN: "O'Rourke marvels at Beto-mania, conceding it's 'a great question' whether he's ready for White House": "U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke is getting more buzz as a potential White House contender than people who've served as governor, senator or even vice president and secretary of state, even though he's still stinging from falling short last month to Sen. Ted Cruz.

"'The fact that we came close doesn't diminish the bitterness of the loss,' he said, acknowledging the very real doubts about whether someone who couldn't win election in his home state deserves promotion to commander in chief. 'Oh yeah. I think that's a great question,' he said. 'I ask that question myself.'" DMN ... The Dallas Morning News front page

-- BOSTON GLOBE FRONT PAGE: "Warren takes on race as she eyes black vote"

                 PLAYBOOK READS         

PHOTO DU JOUR: President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive at the Congressional Ball at the White House on Saturday. | Yuri Gripas, Pool/Getty Images
   
ALEX THOMPSON, "DNC Chair Tom Perez goes to war with the state parties": "[DNC] Chairman Tom Perez launched an attack on his own party's state organizations Saturday with a long and angry email over the future of the party's most valuable asset - its voter data file. Just days before an important Tuesday meeting in D.C. on the future of the data operation, Perez sharply criticized a new proposal from state party leaders and singled out prominent state officials by name. ...

"The party's data is largely owned by the state parties, but there is a considerable amount of other data being collected by outside groups like labor unions and super PACs that could be leveraged to benefit Democratic candidates and the eventual 2020 nominee. The DNC wants to gather all the data points on voters into a new, massive for-profit database but needs to convince state parties on the idea.

"The state parties have been wary, accusing the DNC of conducting a power grab that could financially benefit a few elite party figures. ... The executive director of the Alaska Democratic Party, Jay Parmley, emailed a response directly to Perez telling him he was being 'petty.'... 'I like Tom but I think this was really poor judgment. It read like a letter from an 8th grader,' Parmley told POLITICO." POLITICO

TRUMP INC. -- "As the Trumps Dodged Taxes, Their Tenants Paid a Price," by NYT's Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig: "They were collateral damage as Donald J. Trump and his siblings dodged inheritance taxes and gained control of their father's fortune: thousands of renters in an empire of unassuming red-brick buildings scattered across Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. 

"Those buildings have been home to generations of strivers, municipal workers and newly arrived immigrants. When their regulated rents started rising more quickly in the 1990s, many tenants had no idea why. Some heard that the Trump family had spent millions on building improvements, but they remained suspicious.

"'I've always thought there was something strange going on,' said Jack Leitner, who has lived in the Beach Haven Apartments in Coney Island, Brooklyn, for more than two decades. 'But you have to have proof, and it's an uphill battle.' As it turned out, a hidden scam lurked behind the mysterious increases. 

"In October, a New York Times investigation into the origins of Mr. Trump's wealth revealed, among its findings, that the future president and his siblings set up a phony business to pad the cost of nearly everything their father, the legendary builder Fred C. Trump, purchased for his buildings. The Trump children split that extra money. Padding the invoices had a secondary benefit for the Trumps, allowing them to inflate rent increases on their father's rent-regulated apartments." NYT ... The original NYT investigation

    
         
BONUS GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman:

-- "Dr. Elon and Mr. Musk: Life Inside Tesla's Production Hell," by Charles Duhigg in Wired: "Musk began marching through the factory. He walked along the assembly line, red-faced and urgent, interrogating workers he encountered, telling them that, at Tesla, excellence was a passing grade, and they were failing; that they weren't smart enough to be working on these problems; that they were endangering the company. ... As one former executive put it: Everyone in Tesla is in an abusive relationship with Elon." Wired (h/t TheBrowser.com)

-- "Welcome to Rosslyn, Team Trump. Here's All You Need to Know," by Don Alexander Hawkins in POLITICO Magazine: "Arlington County ... didn't used to be independent from the capital. In 1790, President George Washington needed congressional votes to pass Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton's financial program. He secured one of those votes by promising Alexandria's congressman ... to include his town within the new District of Columbia. ... This constitutionally, legislatively and judicially confirmed three-party contract existed for over 50 years." POLITICO

-- "A Mystery Man Helped A Girl Travel To The U.S. When She Was 5. She Just Found Him 15 Years Later," by BuzzFeed's Mary Ann Georgantopoulos: "This man [Tom Perriello] having accepted a kid from a complete stranger, it's a testament to the kind of person he is." BuzzFeed

-- "Nauert Gives Hope to Journalists," by Dovid Efune in the WSJ: "This view of journalism as a dead-end job whose skills aren't transferable to other professions isn't at all accurate. It certainly didn't deter Al Gore, who was a reporter for Nashville's Tennessean; John F. Kennedy, who covered the creation of the U.N. for Hearst Newspapers; or Boris Johnson, a journalist for England's Telegraph and Spectator who became mayor of London and foreign secretary. At least 24 journalists went to work in the Obama administration, by the Atlantic's count." WSJ

-- "Julia Louis-Dreyfus Acts Out," by the New Yorker's Ariel Levy: "The actress on challenging comedy's sexism, fighting cancer, and becoming the star of her own show." New Yorker

-- "Who Killed The Weekly Standard?" by NYT's David Brooks: "If it stood for anything, I would say it stood for this: that the good life consists of being an active citizen and caring passionately about politics; that it also consists of knowing something about Latin American fiction, ancient Greek culture and social impact of modern genetics; that it also consists of delighting in the latest good movies and TV shows, the best new cocktails and the casual pleasures of life." NYT ... Yuval Levin in NR on TWS ... "Last Lines" -- The last piece in the last issue of TWS

-- "Why Joe Biden Turned Down $38 Million," by NYMag's Gabe Debenedetti: "When he left the White House in early 2017, Biden has since revealed to friends, he was presented with a four-year, $38 million deal proposal from a speaking agency. Biden, who was out of an elected job for the first time in 47 years, and who still talks with a certain pride about not coming from wealth, rejected it, wary of the 2016 example." NYMag

-- "Leonardo da Vinci visits 2019" - The Economist: "The coming year sees the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci. To mark the occasion, 'The World in 2019,' our annual edition that looks at the year ahead, publishes a page from a newly discovered volume of Leonardo's journal, written a few months before his death on May 2nd 1519, that records his visit to the year 2019, as the guest of a mysterious time-traveller." The Economist ... "The World in 2019" -- $13.95

-- "America's New Religions," by Andrew Sullivan in NY Mag: "Christianity came to champion the individual conscience against the collective, which paved the way for individual rights. ... Christianity gave us social movements which enabled more people to be included in the liberal project. It was on these foundations that liberalism was built. The question we face is whether a political system built upon such a religion can endure when belief in that religion has become a shadow of its future self." NYMag (h/t TheBrowser.com)

-- "Is the Women's March Melting Down?" by Leah McSweeney and Jacob Siegel in Tablet Magazine - per Longreads.com's description: "An investigation into the leadership, organizational and financial status, and affiliations of the increasingly fractured Women's March. Among many other explosive issues, the article interrogates the alleged anti-semitism of some of the March's leaders, who support the outwardly anti-semitic, misogynistic, and anti-LBGTQ Nation of Islam founder Louis Farrakhan." Tablet

-- "Kelly Slater's Shock Wave," by the New Yorker's William Finnegan: "The best surfer in history made a machine that creates perfect conditions on demand. Will his invention democratize surfing or despoil it?" New Yorker

-- "Meet the Safecracker of Last Resort," by Geoff Manaugh in The Atlantic: "A good safe technician can pass through sealed bank vaults and open jammed strongboxes after just a few minutes of casual manipulation, using skills that often look more like sleight of hand. But just when I started to think that it was all art, I'd see feats of sheer industrial brutality, watching Santore bore through several inches of heavy metal, steel filing past his face like smoke. For the safecracker, there is always a way through." The Atlantic (h/t TheBrowser.com)

                 PLAYBOOKERS      
SPOTTED: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Saturday at the Genius Bar in the Apple store in Georgetown.

SPOTTED at the annual holiday party last night held by Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) and April Delaney at their house in Potomac: Terry McAuliffe chatting with Mark Ein, Dorothy McAuliffe, Ruth Marcus and Jon Leibowitz, Summer Delaney and Nick Fineman, Lillie Belle Viebranz, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Abby Blunt, Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Rep. Dave Trott (R-Mich.), Bret Baier (wearing a colorful Christmas jacket), Amy Baier, David and Katherine Bradley, Alex Gangitano and Bryan Petrich ...

... Fred Ryan chatting with Jose Andres, David Trone, Alan Fleischmann, Alan Murray, Melissa Moss and Jonathan Silver, Susanna Quinn, Richard Kane, Andrew Feldmann, Chris Matthews, Tom Monahan, Caroline and Justin Hunter, Howard Fineman and Amy Nathan, Meredith Fineman, John Shulman, Stuart Holliday and Dana Bash.

WEEKEND WEDDING - RUBIO ALUMNI: Brooke Sammon, SVP at Firehouse Strategies and a Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney and API alum, married David Sours, COS for Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.). The couple met in the House working for former Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.). The ceremony was at St. Peter's on Capitol Hill with a reception at District Winery. Pic ... Another pic

SPOTTED: Brit Hume, Jahan Wilcox, Jeff Grappone and Amy Graham Grappone, Olivia Perez-Cubas, Tim O'Toole, Shannon Bream, Chris Stirewalt, Rob Noel and Christina Mandreucci, Alex and Caitlin Conant, Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) and former Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.).

BIRTHDAYS: Jake Sherman is 33 ... Tom Joannou, who works for Kellyanne Conway, is 24 (hat tip: Kellyanne) ... CNN correspondent Phil Mattingly is 35 ... CNN assignment editor Liz Turrell (h/ts Kevin Bohn) ... Time alum Jim Kelly ... Peter Orszag, vice chairman of investment banking at Lazard ... Lesley Stahl ... Jenni LeCompte, managing director at GPG ... Rebecca Collegio ... Jano Cabrera, SVP of U.S. comms, global media and PR at McDonald's ... Kezia McKeague of McLarty Associates (h/ts Ben Chang) ... FCC's Kate Black ... Melissa Kiedrowicz ... Zach Cohen ... Judith Giuliani ... former Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) is 78 ... Ross Berry is 29 ... Adam Bromberg ... POLITICO's Rebecca Rainey and
 Gary Le ... CNN's Jason Seher ... Matt Mariani ... William Schulz ... Bill Schulz ... Susan Liss ... Matt Klapper, COS to Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) (h/ts Jon Haber) ... Kelsey Knight ... Laura Koran, an MBA candidate at Oxford and a CNN alum ... Carol Browner (h/t Dan Weiss) ... Chris Frech (h/ts Tracey Schmitt and Ed Cash) ... 

... MSNBC's Kendall Breitman (h/t Nihal Krishan) ... Alexa Damis-Wulff ... Warren Adler ... former Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri is 76 ... Sony's Christina Mulvihill ... Amber Smith, president of Beacon Rock Strategies and a Trump DoD alum ... former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn is 7-0 ... Sharon Dickens (h/t Claude Marx) ... David Crook is 65 ... Boston Globe's Liz Goodwin ... Amy Siskind ... Mark Sump ... John Bailey ... Andrea Taylor Recher ... Whitney Kuhn Lawson ... AP's Joan Lowy ... Hugh O'Connell ... Craig Veith ... Jacy Reese ... Jody Murphy ... Scooter Slade ... Edelman alum Clay Black ... Mohammad Reza Noroozpour is 45 ... Emily Merwin ... Doug Culver ... Caitlin Lupton ... Tom Kise
 ... Melissa Wisner ... Elisa Beneze ... Jodie Steck ... Allison Thompson ... Emily Gaumer (h/t Teresa Vilmain)
       
A message from the National Association of Manufacturers:
 
Manufacturers have a message for Congress: deal with the returning harmful taxes that raise health care costs for employers and workers. The Health Insurance Tax (HIT) is an unfair and unneeded sales tax on the health care of American families, including American manufacturing workers. The HIT is delayed for 2019, but action is needed now to ensure families don't get saddled with hundreds of dollars of added health care costs in 2020 and beyond. On average, it costs families $500 a year and individuals $200 to $300. The tax primarily hits small businesses' employees and their dependents, Medicare beneficiaries and those buying individual plans. Instead of making life harder for these 140
 million Americans, Congress should act now to ensure Americans have relief from the HIT and that small businesses, including manufacturers, can continue providing quality health care coverage for their employees. Learn more about why manufacturers oppose the HIT at http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3d754b16217563679171eaf21acf1aefbdd936f4c91101c082a2ec600288302f21212014a0ec0e0f253fa855308f6c9f
                        
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