Max Baucus: “If you read it, it makes clear that this is a sense-of-the-Senate tax provision. It says sense of the Senate, and the…”

“If you read it, it makes clear that this is a sense-of-the-Senate tax provision. It says sense of the Senate, and the Patients' Bill of Rights should remove the restrictions on the private sector medical savings account demonstration program to make medical savings accounts available to more Americans. Medical savings accounts is a tax provision. This says remove restrictions to make it more available; to, in effect, change the tax law to make it more available. It is clearly a sense-of-the-Senate tax bill. Second, it has been asserted that it is for the working poor. I have a distribution chart furnished by the President which indicates what income groups of Americans utilize medical savings accounts. By far, the greatest income level to use medical savings accounts is that with adjusted gross income--the total gross is a lot more--of between $100,000 and $200,000. Those people are hardly the working poor. For those in the lowest category--those with adjusted gross incomes of under $5,000--you get 111 returns. For those in the earlier category that I mentioned--those in the $100,000 to $200,000 adjusted gross income--you get 9,400 returns. It is not for the working poor. That is not the main point. The main point is that this is a sense-of-the-senate tax provision. We should not go down this road.”