GOP Pushing Hidden Health Care Tax on All Americans, Not Reform
Republicans and right wing commentators who oppose health care reform hope to turn our effort at lowering costs and expanding access into a debate about whether or not to tax small businesses. In opposing our reform they would instead continue the hidden health care tax on all Americans that exceeds the surcharge on the highest income taxpayers that is included in the House bill.
Before you adopt their rhetoric, remember that nearly half of the cost of the House Democrats' health plan would be paid by tight cost controls and forcing down the expense of the health care system. That's a top priority. And as for who will pay higher taxes and who won't under our plan, here are the cold facts.
Only the highest earning 1.2 percent of American households will pay a surcharge for health care reform. That leaves 98.8 percent of American households who will not pay any surcharge at all.
As for small businesses, according to the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation, only 4.1 percent of all small business owners will be affected by the health care surcharge. The remaining 95.9 percent of small business owners will be completely unaffected by the surcharge.
Under our bill, a family making up to $350,000 in adjusted gross income (AGI) will not owe any surcharge at all, as President Obama has promised. A family making $500,000 in AGI will contribute $1,500 to help reduce costs and provide access to affordable health care for all Americans -- 0.3 percent of their annual income. And a family making $1 million in AGI will contribute $9,000, or 0.9 percent of their annual income.
Who are the highest earning 1.2 percent of all households? They are the same households who over the past 20 years have seen a massive shift in wealth in their favor and who over the last 8 years received the lion's share of President Bush's tax cuts.
Between 2001 and 2010, the richest one percent of taxpayers alone will have received approximately $700 billion from the Bush tax cuts, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. Those tax cuts for the wealthy one percent have been the biggest contributor to the record deficits wrung up during the Bush Administration -- deficits that were passed along to President Obama in January.
The Washington Post put it another way. They pointed out that over the past 20 years, the highest earning Americans have seen their tax burden go down and their share of national wealth rise. The share of adjusted gross income claimed by the highest earning Americans doubled, from 11 percent to 22 percent.
Meanwhile, average American working families have seen their wages stagnate, their health care costs spiral out of control, and their share of national wealth reduced.
Many Republicans and right wing commentators would do nothing to reform health care and would instead leave in place the hidden $1,800 a year tax on all Americans in the form of rapidly rising health insurance premiums caused by uncontrolled health care spending and the shared cost of covering the uninsured.
Congress faces a clear choice. Our plan cuts more than $500 billion in health care spending and asks the richest 1.2 percent of all households to make a modest contribution of their income toward the remaining cost of our health care reform effort to reduce costs and strengthen our economy. The main Republican plan -- Just Do Nothing -- maintains the hidden tax on every business, large and small, and every American suffering under today's broken health care system.
George Miller (D-CA) is chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and one of the three principal authors of the "America's Affordable Health Choices Act" introduced this week.
Follow Rep. George Miller on Twitter: www.twitter.com/askgeorge
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"...nearly half of the cost of the House Democrats' health plan would be paid by tight cost controls and forcing down the expense of the health care system."
Tight cost controls? From Congress?
That's as far as I could read.
Whom are you kidding, Mr. Miller?
Used to, the Dems were for giving the little guy and the disenfranchised a chance and Reps were for turning loose regulations on business.
What are they for now, both sides? Giving themselves a chance to stay elected and turning loose the controls on spending.
Whatever you knuckleheads come up with in DC will serve the people you represent neither efficiently or fairly.
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OMG. The GNOP-ers want to raise TAXES by taxing employer contributions to employee health care.
Who are these modern day GNOP-ers?
Certainly not your grandfathers political party anymore. They spend and tax like drunken sailors with the same moral compass or lack thereof. They pontificate morality for the rest of us but let their dicks do their business.
Everyone agrees on the problem, it's the soloution that is the fly in the oinkment! (Pun intended) I think the "public option" is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Bottom line, if everybody is in the same system, the many healthy pay for the few that are sick. It's niave to think that you can legislate a system that will not cause problems for some people, by that I mean the insurance companies and the drug companies. If we have single payer, universal health care some people will be put out of work, so be it. This problem needs to be solved. Our economy can no longer feed this "free market" system. It has become too big and too greedy. Let's take profit out of health care. It can't be any worse than the broken system we have. In time, it could be a whole lot better, for the health care industry and the economy. Man up, take the medicine.
As a 60 yr. old unemployed and now unisured American that put 23 years in the auto retail industry I don't find much comfort in Rep. Miller's words. Better he be the first to sign on to this plan and then get me in too. What's good for Rep. Miller should be good for everyone else. Quit the ranting and blaming and set an example. Afteral you've had a great career with wonderful retirement and health benefits that 98% of the rest of this country will never see.
I believe there is a "health care tax" but the Democrats and the "reform bill" keep it in place instead of dealing with it. It's not just the GOP who favors this hidden tax.
If we went to single payer we could recoup the 30% or so lost to private health insurance overhead. That alone would pay for health care reform THAT INCLUDES universal coverage.
Instead we're going the "public option" route. That means we're going to take the world's most expensive health care system AND THROW ANOTHER 100 BILLION TAX DOLLARS A YEAR at it! Congratulations! You took the world's most expensive system and MADE IT MORE EXPENSIVE!!!
And at that extreme cost we STILL don't get universal coverage.
This "health care reform" bill is worse than a sad failure. It's a betrayal of the responsibility of our government.
A tax is paid to the government, not private industry. I am fairly certain that Rep Miller knows this. However, he states "Many Republicans and right wing commentators would do nothing to reform health care and would instead leave in place the hidden $1,800 a year tax on all Americans in the form of rapidly rising health insurance premiums caused by uncontrolled health care spending and the shared cost of covering the uninsured". Rep Miller would be better served calling it what it is: uncontrolled cost, price gouging, inflation, fraud, etc., whichever term fits. But the $1,800 is not a tax, just like the increase in the cost of groceries or other items are not taxes.
The Dems want to drive down costs. Ask any CEO/CFO how they immediately cut costs. They cut costs by cutting the expense of labor, either by layoffs or wage reductions.
Whose jobs will be cut and who's wages will be cut? The ninety five percent of healthcare workers who make the least amount will be forced to bear the entire burden of the Dem's so called healthcare reform. As a patient you should be very concerned.
Don't look for the insurance companies, hospitals or physicians to lose "anything". Without single payer government run health insurance and the elimination of private health insurance companies there will be no healthcare reform and no universal healthcare.
The Repubs don't want to change the status quo and the dems are gutless to do the right thing.
that was my thought...
You cut the costs by taking out the billions in profits insurance companies generate and put it into actual health care for people.
And single payer will alter this how?
If single payer cuts costs,
they will do it the same way.
Social Security has a lavish party and cuts benefits.
Is the post office laying off the Postmaster General?
Can we all just agree that any and all Republicans are a travesty and should be banned from public office?.
Their party should go the way of the Whigs, and make way for a good Independent Party. They care nothing about the American people. They care for their own little fiefdom and for the corporations and lobbyist who put them in power. They are against any and all who are not white and male. They are for denying health care for all and against any change to the energy policies.
In other words, who needs them? We all voted for change and change is what we are going to demand. We certainly don't care if a single one of them votes for Health Care and that goes for the Blue Dog Dems. The blue dogs are going to be taken care of in the next election. So, too, are the Republicans.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the GREATEST TRAGEDY perpetrated upon the American Voting Public was when Representative George Miller (D-CA) was not made Speaker of The House.
He was the Brains behind Nancy Pelosi when she was Minority Leader. She has been a disappointment as Speaker and it would be for the Good of All if she got out of the way.
Mr. Miller, your cogent, persuasive arguments always remind me of this fact.
Health care should not be insureable.
it is because of the third party payer system that it got so expensive
Make health care illegal, that would be fair to everyone.
Only the rich deserve doctors and health care in america, that's the agenda.
Nobody can collect the money to pay for health care as cheaply as the government can through a national sales tax.
New reform is proposing to help us by having government force individuals and businesses to purchase questionable insurance to pay for expensive services in a system that has already failed many of us.
Nobody can deliver high quality care and medications, free to everyone who asks, without requiring insurance or co pays just free period, as cost effectively as government owned and operated hospitals serving as the public portion of a new public/private reform system could.
Private pay private care could be kept by everyone who likes what they have.
Real reform that would serve individuals with totally free care and would relieve businesses of all health care obligations financial, record keeping, everything eliminated, it would be healthy for everyone and the greatest national economic stimulus ever.
A new dual public/private system that would deliver all government funded programs free through government owned and operated hospitals and clinics would save the government hundreds of billions annually from the current costs and government savings would be even larger when compared to projected costs for new proposed reforms.
Ask the President and legislators why this is not on the table?
"as cheaply as the government can through a national sales tax."
No one has proposed a National sales tax to fund Health Insurance, this is expedient myth to create cynicism and fear, but what has been suggested is that the top 1.2 % of Americans, simply give back a portion of the Bush tax cuts, which helped to double their AGI at a time when the budget deficit was increasing and median incomes for working Americans were stagnating while their health care cost were rising ridiculously.
"Nobody can deliver high quality care and medications, free to everyone who asks"
This debate is about health insurance, not free Healthcare, that is another expedient myth created by those who would like you to fear change and have us do nothing as a country.
Anyone who is suggesting that this Administration should take over all Healthcare services in this country by running all or the majority of hospitals and insurance plans, is positioning the GOP for a return to power, and have no interest is solving this problem, they are more interested in forcing the country into such a bad debt-ridden position that all efforts to correct this short-coming will be dropped
So things can return to business as usual, for Big Insurance, and the GOP who is invested in the Government failing to offer legitimate solutions.
This post completely ignores any political realism, this would be different if 10 million people were camping on the WH lawn demanding demanding it, but they are not actually millions are demanding "no change at all" through talk radio, while we are expected the POTUS to do it all with charm.
Typical Goopers- always supporting taxes on the lower and middle classes.
Being a conservative means always piling on the "lower 98%" who have the audacity to not be mega-rich.
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