Posted on 04/29/2010 7:17:22 AM PDT by GailA
In the days leading up to the dramatic late-night vote on President Barack Obama’s health plan, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it …” Now that ObamaCare has passed, it is slowly dawning on people what the new law means for the country and for Washington state.
ObamaCare sweeps away a host of state regulations and permanently alters our state’s insurance market. From now on, the federal government will manage the health care of all Washingtonians. The 2,700-page law contains a complex web of mandates, directives, price controls, tax increases and subsidies.
Federal officials will now decide what kind of insurance people in Washington must have, what medicines will be covered, what treatments are allowed and which are not. Early reports indicate, however, that President Obama, Vice President Biden, the Cabinet, senior members of Congress and leadership staff are exempt.
The new law falls well short of universal coverage. ObamaCare will leave about 6 percent of Washington residents without coverage. The measure is conservatively expected to cost $2.4 trillion in its first full decade. Thousands of older Washingtonians will lose their Medicare Advantage coverage, and the state’s 120,000 Health Savings Account holders may need to buy new policies or face stiff penalties.
Washington residents will begin paying ObamaCare taxes this year, while most benefits don’t start until 2014. The law includes some 19 new taxes. Here’s a rundown of what Washingtonians can expect in the coming years.
Penalties on individuals. Individuals will pay a yearly penalty of $695, or up to 2.5 percent of their annual income, if they cannot show they have purchased a government-approved health policy.
Penalties on families. Families will pay a yearly penalty of $347 per child, up to $2,250 per family, if parents cannot show they have purchased a government- approved policy.
Penalties on employers. Business owners with more than 50 employees must buy government- acceptable health coverage or pay a yearly penalty of $2,000 per employee if at least one employee receives a tax credit.
Tax on investment income. ObamaCare imposes a 3.8 percent annual tax on investment income of individuals making $200,000 or more and on families making $250,000 or more. The new tax is not indexed to inflation, so more people will fall under it each year. Seniors on fixed incomes and people with IRAs and 401(k) plans will be hit particularly hard.
Tax on “Cadillac” health plans. Starting in 2018, imposes a 40 percent annual tax on health care plans valued at $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families.
Medicare tax increase. Requires single people earning $200,000 or more and couples earning $250,000 or more to pay an additional 0.9 percent in Medicare taxes.
Tax on Home Sales. Imposes a 3.8 percent tax on home sales and other real estate transactions. Middle-income people must pay the full tax even if they are “rich” for only one day – the day they sell their house and buy a new one.
Tax on medical aid devices. Creates a new 2.9 percent tax on medical aid devices. Certain items intended for personal use are exempt.
Tax on tanning. Imposes a 10 percent tax on services at tanning salons. Business owners will collect the tax from customers and send it to the federal government. This appears to be the first federal sales tax in the United States.
ObamaCare will be enforced by the Internal Revenue Service. The tax agency plans to hire 16,500 new auditors, agents and investigators, and to increase enforcement audits. The IRS can confiscate tax refunds, place liens on property and seek jail time if health-related penalties and taxes are not paid.
President Obama had said people could keep their coverage if they want, yet the Congressional Budget Office estimates that under ObamaCare 8 million to 9 million people will lose their employer-provided coverage.
The ObamaCare law passed over bipartisan opposition in Congress. Republicans say they will run on a “repeal and replace” platform this fall, and Washington has joined 12 other states in a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s power to force state residents to buy a product – insurance – from private companies. The long-term prospects of ObamaCare are unclear. In the meantime, Washingtonians should prepare for major changes in their tax burden.
Paul Guppy is vice president for research at the Washington Policy Center, a research organization with offices in Spokane, Seattle, Olympia and the Tri-Cities ( www.washingtonpolicy.org).
holy smokes
I would love to see additional confirmation of this. If this is true, it will kill the housing market, once and for all. There will be no recovery.
People keep digging and finding new taxes in that sucker.
http://www.washingtonpolicy.org contact them see what they are saying.
Heh. Wait till the “limousine liberals” get a whiff of THIS next time they sell their “country house”.
There's going to be another "tax" on housing sales. If everyone tries to sell between now and the end of the year, the prices of homes will be further depressed and sellers will not only have the loss due to tax but a true loss in sales price.
Maybe waiting a year, house values might go back up a bit and cancel some of the tax hit. Who knows, though?
Still bad enough. It'll really hit retirees who seek to downsize or sell a home they've long since paid for.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2478380/posts
http://www.gop.gov/blog/10/04/08/obamacare-flatlines-obamacare-taxes-home
http://www.cprights.org/2010/04/obamacare-taxes-home-sales.php
http://localhealthguideonline.com/view-obamacare-taxes-now-services-later/
Wrong. EVERYONE will lose their employer-provided coverage. Employers have a financial incentive to discontinue their plans and dump their employees on public coverage.
Every employee in this country is going to find out in the next few years, just what this socialist takeover means to them. New taxes will be the least of our problems.
How does limiting your Flexible Spending Account election to $2500 a year, disallowing over the counter medication from being eligible for FSA reimbursements, and increasing the threshold for medical write-offs from 7% to 10% on your Federal Income Tax actually decrease the cost of heath care for the average American?
Thanks for the links! I’ll follow them up.
I have told some of my still-supporting-Obama friends about this tax, and they did not believe me. This should help!
REPEAL this piece of statist crap!!
thanks to those in Wash state to those that helped elect the Zero. Here is your hope and change that you were promised
Unreal. The public is so stupid. Keep watching them NCAA ball games and reality TV.
This raises the price of the house by 3.8% when houses aren’t selling because people don’t qualify. This will not only affect the appraisal but the monthly payment as well.
Here’s another poke in the eye that’s coming soon. The current “rule” is the seller can pay all of the closing costs (4% on V.A. loans). That is being decreased to a total of $3,000 in June. June is also the last month the tax rebate will be paid. In Texas closing costs on a house priced at $150,000 will run around $6,000 including escrows. The FHA down payment will be around $5,250. As of now the seller can pay the closing costs so the buyer would need $5,250. Under the new rule a buyer would need $8,250 to purchase this house.
It appears to me islamabama is doing everything he can to completely destroy the housing market and to destroy the country.
I would really like more information about this. Is this 3.8% tax on “unearned income” essentially a capital gains tax or is it a tax on the gross sale price of the house? If it’s the latter, then that will kill the housing market stone cold dead. There are tons of people with negative equity in their house. They consider themselves lucky if they can short sale their house. Now, that would be a curse. If this is indeed the case, I would expect the amount of people walking away from their houses to skyrocket (to borrow a turn of phrase from Buraq).
In the HELLthControl Bill?
Well, as long as I don’t have to share my sister’s dentures...geez oh petes.
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