Posted on 12/27/2014 4:07:51 AM PST by Kaslin
The so-called Obamacare Cadillac Tax is scheduled to begin on January 1, 2018. It is a 40% non-deductible tax on the cost of medical insurance plans that exceed "predetermined thresholds". The "predetermined thresholds" will be determined by government appointees. The Cadillac Tax is supposed to raise $80 billion over ten years to finance the expansion of health coverage. The reality is that the Obamacare Cadillac Tax will ultimately diminish the quality of medical insurance coverage for tens of millions of Americans because no entities will be able to afford to pay it. The cost of the tax is beyond what any for-profit or non-profit entity will be able to pay their employees. Employers are already informing their employees that their medical insurance programs will be shrunk to avoid the Obamacare Cadillac Tax. Who will have reduced medical insurance coverage? Anyone with a great medical plan from their employer: large employers, union members, government employees. For every $1000 of additional coverage beyond the "predetermined thresholds", the employer will be assessed a non-deductible tax of $400 and if the employer is a business, the business will be forced to earn an additional roughly $666.00 to pay for the insurance. The cost of each employee will increase by $666.00 for each $1000 his or her medical insurance costs are over the government selected "predetermined threshold". This is a huge number. With 10,000 employees, the cost of the $1000 per employee would be a reduction of profits of $6,600,000. The $1000 number selected is an arbitrary one. CIGNA has produced a chart where the analysis of additional costs of the Cadillac Tax per family ranges from a tax of $200 per employee to $3400 per employee. If a union member is receiving the medical insurance plan shown on the CIGNA chart at the maximum end and there are 10,000 employees in the company, the company would need to earn an additional roughly $22,500,000 to pay the Obamacare Cadillac tax. These medical plans will be nothing more than an historical footnote. The $80 billion of tax revenues will never appear. Companies as well as government entities will limit their medical insurance plans to the "predetermined thresholds". It is difficult to imagine virtually any entity continuing with any plan that results in an Obamacare Cadillac Tax. Companies will either increase medical insurance deductibles or reduce services to Obamacare required minimums, "bronze plans". Americans will see their medical expenses explode. January, 2015 is the time for the new Republican Congress to vote to eliminate the Obamacare Cadillac Tax. Congress needs to protect working Americans. The Republicans should let the Democrats know that if they do not override the expected veto from the President, no bill to eliminate the Cadillac Tax can be expected until either there is a Republican President or the Cadillac Tax goes into effect in 2018. Democrats get one chance to protect their constituents. The Democrats should understand the risk of having the Cadillac Tax in place for both the 2016 and 2018 elections. The unions, including government unions, will understand by November, 2016 that their health plans are going to be destroyed. If Democrats want to set the table for Republicans by voting against repeal of the Obamacare Cadillac Tax, they will do so at their own peril.
The government should stay the hell out of our medical care system! The more they mess about with it, the worse it gets.
Don’t kill the “Cadillac Tax”.
KILL THE WHOLE OBAMACARE MESS.
Amen. Boner et. al. will get rid of the really nasty parts of the bill but leave us dealing with the rest of the merely bad issues. The GOPe is worse than the DNC; at least we know the DNC’s agenda.
At least the EXEMPT will not have to pay this,
on the way to their brothels, al Qaeda meetings,
and banks. The EXEMPT created this two-tier tax
system, with them .... above the Law (SSDD).
They cannot kill this hidden cost because they have to use that cost (expenditure) to pump up the GDP growth.
Yes, that’s ‘growth’ in their mind.
LOL ... all Union Members certainly want the tax stopped. The last time checked most Unions support democrats overwhelmingly. Union Members shafted by democrats .... LOL.
Last I checked, most Union healthcare plans were considered “Cadillac.” This means that union members will be most affected.
I think we should leave this tax in place. It will only result in more Union members abandoning the Democrat party. These people, formerly known as “Reagan Democrats” will soon be known as “Cruz Democrats.”
“KILL THE WHOLE OBAMACARE MESS.”
The Cadillac tax matters only to those with union or employer plans. For those having to buy private plans, and absorbing huge premium and deductible increases combined with less benefits, Obamacare itself is a huge new tax burden. If you aren’t eligible for a subsidy, the huge cost increases to the individual are a crushing tax.
Boehner and McConnell have no intention of ending Obamacare. I expected a show vote to end the ACA by the new Congress which Obama would promptly veto. Now I’m not sure the Republicans will even bother with the show vote. Likely they’ll kill the Cadillac tax and the medical device tax. They’ll have the Federal Reserve print more money to cover the lost revenue needed to pay for the huge Obamacare bureaucracy and subsidies.
The only way to defund Obamacare is separate it from the reset of the federal budget. Pass spending bills by department one by one early in the year and sent them to Obama for signature or veto. Get his signatures on the rest of federal spending before sending the Obamacare funding bill to him. He can veto it or not as he pleases, the rest of the government will be funded.
The fear is groundless. By 2018 there will be no Obamacare
Obamacare will end by July 17 2015
Beyond that point the market will provide insurance modified by the absence of lawyers gaming the system
GOPe agenda is to off load employer health care costs to the government,import more tech workers on HB 1 visas to undercut American tech workers wages,import more illegals to undercut wages American’s wages and give illegals all kinds of government benefits to attract these illegal workers at no cost to the members of the Chamber of Commerce. That is the agenda and why they will work with Democrats and attempt to crush any conservative political agenda from seeing the light of day.
NO....KILL THE WHOLE DAMN THING!
Don’t kill that tax yet, let it burn the unions that got the bastard elected first!
Let the idiot unions get stung by what they promote and we can kill the whole damn thing. Mostly government employees in CA, NY, and other socialist $*itholes will be effected, they can learn a lesson here.
When their gold plated plans come under attack they will gladly feed the expanded Medicaid to the wolves.
If you want to kill the entire thing you can’t just exempt the parts liberals like.
KILL THE WHOLE ILLEGAL OBAMACARE MESS.
I wonder....will this have any effect on Tricare, the military coverage????
Scared in GA
It better not
I can just hear the County Employee’s screaming when this happens. They bitch about every charge that affects their benefits now, this one will be BIG. No doubt they will want a health pay increase to offset their “loss” of benefits.
Employer-paid medical insurance only exists today because: (1) the government allows private-sector employers to deduct the cost of this insurance, and (2) the government treats this benefit differently than almost any other one by allowing employees to be insured without reporting it as a taxable benefit on their tax returns.
So in effect, the government heavily subsidizes your medical care ... which means that it's hard to get all worked up when that same government imposes a tax on it. There are a lot of things wrong with the ACA, but this "Cadillac Tax" is far from the worst part of it.
I would almost guarantee, that under Obamacare’s current plan, Tricare and any other military healthcare would eventually be rolled up under Obamacare. The same for Medicare.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.