Senate Health Insurance Industry Bill Taxes the Middle Class, Not Just Union Members

[Better Believe It]

Senate Bill Taxes the Middle Class, Not Just Union Members
by GoozNews
January 12, 201012

The morning's media coverage of the fight over the misnamed Cadillac tax has rightfully focused on the political cost. But it's not just unions who will be alienated, a media focus triggered by AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka's appearance at the National Press Club yesterday. As Trumka pointed out, the 40 percent excise tax on high-cost insurance plans contained in the Senate health care reform bill will primarily hit older, sicker middle class Americans stuck in high-cost plans, and that includes a lot of people who are not part of organized labor.

The raw numbers are instructive. While one in four union members will be hit by the tax, there's only 16 million union members in America. Therefore, only four million union households maximum will be hit by the tax. The Joint Committee on Taxation analysis suggests 25 million U.S. households will be hit by the tax by 2019.

As Allan Sloan's column in today's Washington Post points out after reviewing the Congressional Budget Office numbers, the vast majority of revenue generated by the tax will come from households earning between $100,000 and $200,000 a year. If the Democrats adopt this plan, a political disaster of epic proportions awaits them.

http://www.gooznews.com/node/3231

[dionysus]

1. if gooznews says it, it must be so. but, even if true, let's try this; give me a $100,000 a year,

and you can go ahead and raise my taxes, i really won't care. it'd be almost twice what i make now.

[Better Believe It]

3. Did you forget that this health insurance tax means the excise tax on wealthy Americans is out?

The House proposal to tax millionaires is dead and will be replaced with a tax on health insurance benefits which actually means employers will reduce benefits or end them entirely in order to avoid paying the health insurance tax.

[WeCanWorkItOut]

2. Important point. And at the same time ...

it does little to rein in health cost inflation