Ahead with Obama's tax plan aimed to support healthcare reforms

Reuters broke news July 14 of a plan by Democrats in the US House of Representatives to add a 5.4 percent tax on millionaires to help pay for President Obama`s healthcare reforms. Other news sources were unable to match the story for more than an hour because Reuters had tapped into a source who was in the meeting where the tax was being decided. The story was No. 1 in page views on reuters.com for July 13-19. Reuters was 41 minutes ahead of DJN and 73 minutes ahead of Bloomberg. The tax proposal quickly became the most controversial topic on healthcare of the week as the size of it was completely unexpected and 2.4 pct higher than any tax previously discussed. With this news, Reuters clients were first to get word of a potential major impediment to passage of the healthcare bill in the House — and in fact, more than a week later the tax issue had not been resolved. Not only were competitors scrambling, word of the tax quickly spread around Capitol Hill prompting strong opposition from Republicans who generally oppose tax increases.