{"id":488981,"date":"2010-03-30T10:02:12","date_gmt":"2010-03-30T14:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.szone.us\/f95\/side-effects-higher-health-insurance-taxes-41576\/"},"modified":"2010-03-30T10:02:12","modified_gmt":"2010-03-30T14:02:12","slug":"side-effects-higher-health-insurance-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/488981","title":{"rendered":"Side Effects: Higher Health Insurance Taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>On 03.30.10 04:01 AM posted by Kathryn Nix<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/seiu-healthcare-protest-100.jpg\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/seiu-healthcare-protest-100.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Union bosses howled about one Obamacare tax hike: the levy on \u0093Cadillac\u0094 health plans (expensive plans rich in benefits).  The problem with this tax, as they see it, is that it hits the very plans often enjoyed by their rank-and-file.<\/p>\n<p>Ever eager to please the unions, Democratic leaders added a \u0093fix\u0094 to the reconciliation bill the president will sign into law today (Tuesday).  It delays the unpopular tax to 2018.  The pols are touting it as a scaled back version of the tax.  But even the \u0093fix\u0094 is broken.<\/p>\n<p>While the tax won\u0092t bite until after the president leaves office, \u0093scaled back\u0094 it is not.  The revised version raises the threshold for plans that would be subject to the tax.  But it also indexes the threshold to rise with the general inflation rate.<\/p>\n<p>The original tax was indexed to  general inflation plus 1 percent. The \u0093plus 1\u0094 was meant to account for the higher rate of inflation in medical costs.  Dropping that \u0093plus 1 percent\u0094  means that more and more Americans\u0092 health plans will fall under the tax as premium costs continue to outpace inflation.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/jec.senate.gov\/republicans\/public\/_files\/CadillacTaxShuffle032310.pdf\" >Joint Economic Committee<\/a>, \u0093Under the provisions of the proposed \u0093fix\u0094, the high cost plans tax will hit the average family plan five years earlier.  The subsidized exchange \u0093silver plan\u0094 premium would be subject to the tax eleven years earlier.\u0094<\/p>\n<p>Bottom line: Though the tax may  be \u0093scaled back\u0094 in the short term, it will hit more Americans\u0092 health plans sooner in the long term.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than simply increase taxes to expand government health programs,  Congress should replace the current tax exclusion with a fairer system: universal tax credits. Short of that, there are a number of practical steps Congress can take to expand private health insurance coverage and treat all citizens more equitably.  It\u0092s all <a href=\"http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/Research\/Reports\/2009\/07\/How-to-Design-a-Tax-Cap-in-Health-Care-Reform\" >explained here<\/a> by Heritage analyst Stuart Butler.<\/p>\n<p>To learn more about sensible tax reform that experts and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle support, click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/Research\/Reports\/2010\/02\/The-Health-Care-Summit-A-Chance-to-Start-Over-and-Get-It-Right\" >here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/03\/30\/side-effects-higher-health-insurance-taxes\/\" >http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/03\/30\/&#8230;surance-taxes\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 03.30.10 04:01 AM posted by Kathryn Nix Union bosses howled about one Obamacare tax hike: the levy on \u0093Cadillac\u0094 health plans (expensive plans rich in benefits). The problem with this tax, as they see it, is that it hits the very plans often enjoyed by their rank-and-file. Ever eager to please the unions, Democratic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}