Health policy faded into the background this weekend as political gossip led the news cycle, but there’s still some items of interest.

The American Spectator’s Philip Klein looks at reports that a proposed Medicare payroll tax that would help fund a health overhaul may be increased again. Klein notes:

This would actually follow the historical pattern of payroll taxes. The Social Security tax has been raised 20 times since first being implemented in 1935, from 1 percent to 6.2 percent, while the Medicare tax has gone up seven times since 1966, from 0.35 percent to 1.45 percent. Taking into account that employers must match the payroll tax contributions of their employees, the combined tax went from 2 percent when introduced in 1935, to 15.3 percent today.

National Journal’s Marilyn Werber-Serafini asks her ‘experts’ what they think of the ‘Cadillac’ tax — and so far respondents Paul Fronstin John Goodman, Sally Pipes, and Jason Rosenbaum have weighed in. 

Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky examines the differences between proposals for a national  and state-based health insurance exchanges.

Health Beat’s Maggie Mahar examines the case of a Buffalo hospitals system, Kaleida, which has been advertising its services across the border in Canada.

Jaan Sidorov of the Disease Management Care Blog disagrees with a New England Journal of Medicine piece from Harvard researchers who argue “current protections are inadequate to ensure fairness” in these workplace wellness programs.

And Reason Magazine has a new tongue-in-cheek video about transparency in health legislation, calling the process “Real World: DC” (via Cato):