The last thing the American middle class needs right now is a big new tax on health insurance plans.
Many working people are now poorer than they were 10 years ago. Middle-class families earned less in inflation-adjusted dollars than they did in 1999. Homeowner wealth dropped by $11 trillion in the housing bust, and a staggering one-quarter of them owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.
But the U.S. Senate wants to further impoverish the American middle class. As many as 30 million working people will pay a massive new tax in the first five years of the Senate health care reform plan.
The House, on the other hand, has the right idea. It pays for health care reform with a small surtax on those who benefited most from changes in our tax code - people who earn more than $500,000 a year. The House also requires most employers to provide health care for their workers.
We support the House plan because it really does reform health care. It will lower costs, deliver more health care and cover more people. It will level the playing field, taking away the unfair cost advantage enjoyed by employers who don't offer health insurance.
The Senate plan, on the other hand, would punish employers who already provide health care by taxing their health insurance plans. A recent survey found that 87 percent of employers said they will cut benefits if reform increases their costs, and 86 percent said they would pass the additional costs on to workers, according to Towers Perrin.
That isn't cost control. It also isn't fair and it isn't reform.
The Senate's proposed tax has been mischaracterized as a tax on "Cadillac plans." That ignores the very real reasons some health plans are expensive. One big reason is that insurance companies take excessive profit, not that they offer too much care.
Many, many people are in expensive plans because they are old or sick or work in dangerous professions. Plans with more women workers have higher costs. Small businesses often have to pay more.
The tax would apply to one-fifth of all employers in 2013, the first year that health reform takes effect. More and more people would get hit each year after that. The threshold for taxable plans is indexed for inflation, which doesn't rise as fast as health care costs.
Here's an example of how it would work for federal workers covered by the Blue Cross/Blue Shield standard plan. Single people in the plan will immediately pay an average of about $1,600 more per year for 10 years. Families will get hit in the third year, paying an average of about $2,000 more per year for 10 years.
By 2022, the Blue Cross/Blue Shield standard family plan will cost $5,500 in taxes per worker. Single people could pay as much as $3,500 per worker.
Middle-class families in private and public sector jobs, union and non-union alike, will be hit hard by this tax on health care benefits.
We want to work with the Senate, the House and the administration to achieve real healthcare reform. Adding to the financial burden of middle-class wage earners isn't the way to do it.
In other words, I personally do not care who gets my $400/month as long as I can get a job and not have to worry about pre-existing conditions costing me insurance and necessary coverage.
"This is a huge lie."
Hey, give it up. The mantra of a leftist is, "inconvenienced by the truth, just make up your own facts"
This is a huge lie. Economic envy at it's finest which is the biggest tactic of the left. Tell everyone how somebody is doing better than you. And you blame Republicans for fear tactics? Hypocrites.
The truth is that not only do insurance companies make about the same profits as any other industry they even make less than the mean. This is also true regarding executive compensation. An in depth study was conducted which created a median level of profit and compensation using 352 companies across several industries and revenue bases. When the 5 biggest insurance companies were compared to the median all but one were in the negative numbers (below median). In fact, United Health Care's CEO compensation was 81% below the median. All companies showed a negative revenue comparison for the last 4 years and only showed a positive (above median) in the 5 year bracket.
The myth of excessive profits by insurance companies is just that....a myth. In fact Nancy Pelosi's constituency at Star Kist tuna showed a higher level of profitability than most major insurance companies. She has no problem protecting them with minimum wage exceptions.
http://graefcrystal.com/images/CRYS_REP_HLTH_INS_8_12_09.pdf
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=14074
thanks huffposters - you were there in the forefront ripping her down - and now we are stuck with this incompetent - who gives trillions to the bankers - but wants union households to pay for his useless
health care "reform".
oh and ill thank you in advance for losing us the Congress in 2010 - thanks oh so much!
Mike- http://www.onedollarglobeinsurance.com
This legislation only protects the healthcare industrial establishment of insurers, drug companies, vendors, consultants, providers. and phony groups like AARP and so called health advocacy societies that take money in their grants as well as a congress that takes big campaign contributions.
The americam citizen is being again victimized and labor is not our spokesperson.
This time the right wing republicans are right because the bill is not right-KILL THE BILL
While you are working with Congress and the administration, wil you please try to find the person named Barack Obama who stood before an AFL/CIO audience in Illinois on June 30, 2003 and said this:
“I happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal health care coverage. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent—14 percent—of its gross national product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim’s talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out: a single-payer health care plan, universal health care plan.“
Candidate Obama seems to have disappeared into the White House and the person who has reappeared as President Obama bears only a slight resemblence.
Please don't be shy in telling our president what he must hear. It is not only union members, but all working Americans with benefits, who will suffer if these taxes are imposed!