One thing has become clear regarding the payment of taxes by Americans. The health care legislation would require the wealthier Americans to pay higher taxes than those who are not affluent.

Despite being a politically risky decision, both the House and Senate versions of the bill levy new taxes on the wealthy to help pay for the expansion of health insurance coverage.

There is, however, a difference of opinion about who counts as rich and how much they would pay.

The house bill says that couples with more than $1 million in income would pay an additional levy, or surtax, of up to 5.4 percent.

The Senate bill, on the other hand, would it families of more modest wealth- over $250,000- with a payroll tax hike of 0.5 percent.

The consensus remains on both the house and Senate bills including tax increases because not very many years ago, when the party was seeking to shed its liberal reputation, any kind of tax- increase was treated as political dynamite.

Robertson Williams, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center said, "Taxing the rich works because they've got the money, you can't go to that well over and over again."