Progress comes in small steps

With National Review's The Corner in full scale campaign mode against healthcare reform, former Bush White House policymaker Tevi Troy notes --

... this new analysis from the Lewin Group showing that doctors stand to lose $18,900 per physician in the third year of the proposed law. The losses come mainly as a result of reduced revenues stemming from the bill's Medicare cuts, and increased expenses stemming from serving the newly insured. This analysis does not, of course, count the increased taxes doctors would disproportionately have to pay based on their higher-than-average incomes

This may set a record as the first time that a Republican has acknowledged that tax increases affect doctors. Because the more typical claim is that tax increases hit Joe the Plumber, joint police-fire households, and small business owners -- where "small business owner" includes, for example, Cindy McCain. In fact one of the many dodges in George Bush's sales pitch for tax cuts was to ignore the fact that subchapter S-corporations are a favoured tax vehicle of lawyers and doctors. Apparently we're about to hear a lot more about the victims of higher taxes in the professions.

UPDATE: Karl Rove returns to the normal tax talking points --

Most of those stuck with higher taxes will be small business owners