Senate Democrats, who are united in support of higher income tax rates for millionaires and billionaires, are paralyzed by disagreements on how to tax the estates of the wealthiest Americans.

Lobbied by business owners and billionaires, Democrats including Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana resisted a proposal from President Barack Obama to tax individual estates of more than $3.5 million — roughly three in 1,000 — at a top rate of 45 percent. The split among Democrats, who control the Senate, will give Republicans more influence on the issue after the Nov. 6 election.

“It’s something that’s really divided and perplexed our caucus about what’s the fair way to move forward,” said Landrieu, who supports repealing the estate tax and wants to reach a compromise with Republicans. “We don’t have the votes to do anything, really, with it.” As a result, when the Senate votes as scheduled at 2:15 p.m. in Washington today on a bill to extend income tax cuts that expire Dec. 31, the proposal will be silent on the estate tax. Democratic leaders in the Senate sidestepped the estate tax to focus on an issue on which almost all of them agree: Obama’s plan to let income tax cuts expire for the top 2 percent. (Read more at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-25/billionaires-may-win-as-democrats-split-over-estate-tax.html) By Richard Rubin – Jul 25, 2012

The parts of the law that pertain to expanding health insurance coverage will cost $84 billion less over the next 10 years than if the Medicaid expansion, which was to extend insurance coverage to 16 million Americans, has been compulsory for every state. Some states will expand their Medicaid programs as the ACA originally intended; some will expand their Medicaid programs less; others will expand their programs later than the initial timetable of 2014; and some states will forgo an expansion and maintain their current Medicaid programs. According to the CBO, this means about 6 million fewer Americans will be able to get health insurance through Medicaid. About half of these people will instead get federal subsidies to buy private insurance, which is more expensive than Medicaid. But the other half will remain uninsured, offsetting the extra cost and saving the government money in the end. In other words, it will cost less to do less.

The 3 million Americans who will now stay uninsured because of the new Medicaid-opt out will be among the poorest Americans–mostly poor non-parents and poor parents who live in states that already have extremely limited Medicaid eligibility rules. Click on the picture to read the entire article.

Savings Tip: You should have 20xs your annual salary saved by the time you retire for a similar lifestyle: http://t.co/iLse9PeJ

“House Republicans are now the only people left in Washington holding hostage the #MiddleClassTaxCuts for 98% of Americans” -President Obama