Business owners breathed a sigh of relief when the U.S. Senate followed the House of Representatives in voting to repeal a requirement concerning 1099 tax forms.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – the health-care reform law – included a provision requiring U.S. businesses to send a 1099 miscellaneous income statement to every vendor who was paid more than $600 in a given year.

The intent was to make accounting more honest and make sure taxes were paid. Hardly anyone, however, thought the result would be worth the hassle.

A spokesman for the National Society of Accountants called it “a nightmarish regulation that no one in the small business community wanted to deal with.”

Sen. Charles Grassley voted to repeal, having said that the requirement would “cause a lot of hardship for small businesses and farmers when they need to focus on job creation instead.”

It took a few months and a series of congressional votes to make the change, but it’s still a fair example of how the health-care bill can and should be fine-tuned.

The overarching bill was a massive, overly complicated piece of legislation that shouldn’t have been handled the way it was. But it would be foolish to throw the whole thing out, as some political leaders want to do. Many key provisions are popular with Americans and should be given a chance to work.

Slicing out mistakes like the 1099 issue is the right way to go about fixing it. With one addition.

Sen. Tom Harkin was one of a handful of senators voting against the repeal of the provision. He wanted an amendment that would have compensated for the potential loss of revenue.

Considering the sad state of the federal budget, that’s an important point. We’re going to have to do more than cut spending, and revenues should receive greater consideration in future battles over “Obamacare.”