Taxpayer group predicts changes to healthcare law

National Taxpayers Union Vice President Pete Sepp said in a call Tuesday that once the dust settles from the healthcare reform act repeal effort, the focus will quickly turn to several tax-related portions of the bill that President Obama might be willing to change.

The first is a provision in the act that limits the amount of individual spending that can be claimed in flexible spending accounts.

“Look for early action on that,” he said. He also predicted that elimination of the 1099 reporting requirement for small businesses would pass because concerns over the loss of $17 billion additional revenue it generates will fade.

He said there will be a growing “realization that the regulatory burden that these impose far outweigh by several factors the amount of revenue that will be raised over the scoring window.”

The next item Congress is slated to address is a provision that makes it more difficult to claim medical expense deductions.

Finally, Sepp said a debate over physician payment reimbursements will be a difficult topic for many Republicans to handle because “many Republicans campaigned with the line that their opposition to the healthcare bill was that it was making Medicare cuts."

“Well, there may be some cost reduction measures necessary in Medicare, even in the physician reimbursement area, so whether the Republicans who used that as a campaign issues would say that now this should be off the table for deficit reduction, will be an interesting thing to see,” he said.