Posted on 09/20/2009 8:29:27 PM PDT by reaganaut1
Although cast as a tax on gold-plated insurance policies for the well-heeled, it has prompted anxiety among the middle class.
The idea, proposed last Wednesday by Senator Max Baucus, is to help raise money for the nation’s health care overhaul by placing a new excise tax on the most expensive health insurance policies, like the ones offered to partners at Goldman Sachs and other affluent professionals.
The tax is meant to raise more than a quarter of the $774 billion needed to pay for the Baucus plan. But just as much, the tax is intended to discourage the overly generous coverage that many experts say has helped propel the country’s reckless spending on medical care.
As it turns out, though, many smaller fish would get caught in Mr. Baucus’s tax net. The supposedly Cadillac insurance policies include ones that cover many of the nation’s firefighters and coal miners, older employees at small businesses — a whole gamut that runs from union shops to Main Street entrepreneurs.
Under the Baucus plan, insurers selling a plan costing more than $8,000 for an individual and $21,000 for a family would have to pay a 35 percent excise tax on the excess amount.
Although the national average premium is currently $13,375 for a family policy, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, many are much higher than that — particularly in high-cost parts of the country.
Nationwide, about one in 10 family insurance plans would be subject to the new excise tax, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning policy and research group.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Love that headline! LOL!
Pardon my ignorance - but if I have the money and want to pay a high rate in order to get the BEST coverage - why should I be taxed on it ???
Gee, wonder how much the Senate and House plans cost per year? Oh, they couldn’t be ‘Cadillac’ plans, could they?
Wrong. The correct version is as follows:
consumers purchasing a plan costing more than $8,000 for an individual and $21,000 for a family would have to pay a 35 percent excise tax on the excess amount.
That is complete and utter BS. We pay around 26,000. a year and it’s not a cadillac policy and I have no intention of paying any taxes on it and you can take that to the bank. I can head out of here and get equal health care and insurance at 1/20th of the cost here. They keep this sh*t up, they won’t get a single cent from us anymore.
Well - this is the Baucus agglomeration of stuff, which, as a proposal, is DOA. But having it out there as a trial balloon - Obama now knows the problem he faces. If you cannot raise funds by taxing premiums (and I’m not recommending it), you have to find at least that amount of money (or more, were he being honest) from some other source or you can kiss his ostensible goal of “deficit-neutral” buh-bye.
and
Small employers would also probably be hit by the taxes — and, again, not because they offer overly generous coverage. Instead, small businesses tend to pay more for their insurance than bigger employers that can negotiate better premiums. And because they do not have large pools of workers to help spread the risk, small employers tend to pay even higher amounts if they have older or sicker workers.
About 14 percent of small employers, counted as those with fewer than 500 workers, now offer policies that would be subject to the excise tax, said Beth Umland, director of research for Mercer, a consulting firm that conducts an annual survey of employee benefits. That compares with just 5 percent of large employers with 500 or more workers.
As the owner of a small business, I can attest to this. The plan is no better for us, just costs a lot more. Our employees aren't the rich, many are approaching retirement age, but will be taxed like they are.
The Ponzi schemes that are Social Security and Medicare are running out of money. The government has already used all of the money that was supposed to be held in reserve to meet these obligations. They want new money flowing in to cover healthcare "insurance" that they can then distribute to buy more votes.
Gee, wonder how much the Senate and House plans cost per year? Oh, they couldn’t be ‘Cadillac’ plans, could they?
***
Prolly Cadillac coverage at Pinto pricing ???
How about ending politicians “Mercedes Care” and make the old coots be on Medicaid/Medicare?
you mean Vega pricing — Pinto was a Ford
What do they mean by "excess amount"? Excess amount of what?
They floated the idea of taxing health insurance like it was employment compensation, the same as they tax company cars.
But this implementation will tax the people who pay for their own insurance, out of after tax net income.
Who wants to bet they won’t create a “middle” for themselves, a fine if you have less than the required insurance, and an excise tax if you do have the required insurance?
Next march on Washington, includes torches and pitchforks.
The excess over the limits, so that an insurance company would be taxed ($10K-$8K)*0.35 = $700 for an individual policy costing $10,000.
Because you have the money!
Of course, the bill will have some sort of waiver if the “Cadillac Insurance” was attained through union negotiations. A lot of union workers have cadillac plans that cost them little and we certainly don’t want to do anything which offends unions are trial lawyers.
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