Senate Upholds Controversial Obamacare Provision

As 20 states present their lawsuit to a Florida judge seeking to have Obamacare's individual mandate stuck down, another controversial provision in Obama's health-care law has passed a hurdle in the Senate.

In a 46-52 vote, lawmakers killed an amendment sponsored by Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) that would have allowed businesses and nonprofit groups to bypass the law's requirement to file 1099 tax forms for every purchase with a single vendor that totals more than $600 in a year.

As Ezra Klein reports over at The Washington Post, the provision requires an extensive amount of paperwork, and "making the lives of small-business owners miserable isn't a good idea."

Yet that provision is estimated to raise $17 billion over 10 years to pay for a new prevention and public health-care fund.

According to The Hill, a handful of Democrats voted for the Johanns proposal, including Sens. Evan Bayh (IN), Michael Bennet (CO), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Ben Nelson (NE), Mark Pryor (AR), Mark Warner (VA), and Jim Webb (VA).

"The White House does not want to set the precedent of rewriting the healthcare bill," a GOP aide told The Hill. "They don't want to admit they made any mistakes in the bill before the election."

An alternative to Johann’s amendment sponsored by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), which would have increased the reporting trigger from $600 to  $5,000 and exempted employers with less than 25 employees, was also defeated.