ObamaCare's Tax on Taxes The latest gambit to punish for-profit health insurers

WSJ online ^ | 8/23/10 | NA

[GailA]

Lately a lot of Democrats are taking the ObamaCare walk of shame, and not only those whose votes may return them to the labor market this fall. Liberals still think the bill didn't raise taxes enough.

So they've cooked up a virtuoso new scheme. A phalanx of powerful committee Chairmen—including Henry Waxman (House Commerce), Max Baucus (Senate Finance) and Sander Levin (Ways and Means)—want to tax the taxes that the health insurance industry already pays.

Among the hundreds of ObamaCare mandates is an accounting requirement that insurers spend between 80% and 85% of premium revenue on patient care, as opposed

[GailA]

"Your guaranteed Medicare benefits won’t change — whether you get them through Original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan.”

“First of all, if you've got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan" President Barack Hussein Obama

“Cynics beware, I am romantic about the National Health Service; I love it. … The NHS is one of the astounding human endeavors of modern times.” (Donald Berwick)

[Recon Dad]

A phalanx of powerful committee Chairmen—including Henry Waxman (House Commerce),

Not for long........

[GailA]

We can only pray that it is so, or we will have castrocare.

[ConjunctionJunction]

Can’t get past the WSJ pay wall. Darn it!

[Carley]

Just wait until O and his cabal in congress demand ‘excess profits’ taxes on those corporations who are unwilling to hire new employees in the face of his ‘plans’ for them.

[ltc8k6]

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/new_jersey/uninsured-slow-to-sign-up-for-coverage-20100823-apx

http://www.state.nj.us/dobi/division_insurance/njprotect/index.htm#rates

Not many takers in NJ...

They must have fainted when they saw the “free” rates...

[Zone Mom]

Wish I could read the whole story too. Obamacare is unconstitutional and will bankrupt our country. Britain is back-peddling and privatizing. There are options, still. We signed up with a health sharing plan, which allows citizens to share the cost, VOLUNTARILY! That’s the key. The current administration has no respect for human dignity which lies at the heart of our founding principles. They violate our freedom at every turn b/c they think they know what’s best — it’s so patronizing. More on the crash of the middle class to the “new poor”: www.newpoorzone.com.

[KarlInOhio]

I'm not a subscriber, but if you Google the title you can find a full copy of the article on the first page of the search.

Essentially the new federal law mandates that between 80% and 85% of the premium must be spent on patient care (instead of sales commissions, payroll of the insurance company staff and profits). The argument is whether federal taxes paid by the insurance company should be included or removed from the minimum benefit calculation. If it is included in revenue, but not counted as a legitimate medical expense, then the effective manditory rate of claims payment goes up.

[ConjunctionJunction]

Thanks! I was able to read it that way.

[ConjunctionJunction]

ping to post #9.

[GailA]

Among the hundreds of ObamaCare mandates is an accounting requirement that insurers spend between 80% and 85% of premium revenue on patient care, as opposed to administrative expenses, profits, etc.—known in the trade as a “medical loss ratio.” Federal regulators and state insurance commissioners are now groping their way toward an explicit definition of the treatments and services that will be government-certified as “patient care,” which is as complicated as it sounds.

Democrats prefer an extremely narrow definition, the better to hasten the conversion of insurance companies into public utilities. This political pressure is giving most state commissioners night sweats, because they’re responsible for preventing coverage disruptions and premium increases in the insurance markets they oversee. When the commissioners met last week in Seattle, they largely declined to endorse the medical loss restrictions that Democrats favor.

So on to Plan B. The committee Chairmen recently wrote a letter to federal regulators meant to “clarify” their “legislative intent.” They now say that when they wrote a clause “excluding Federal and State taxes and licensing or regulatory fees” from the definition of medical loss, what they really meant is that federal and state taxes should be part of it.