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For months now, we’ve been waiting to hear how much Obamacare will drive up the cost of health insurance for people who purchase coverage on their own. Last night, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services finally began to provide some data on how Americans will fare on Obamacare’s federally-sponsored insurance exchanges. HHS’ press release is full of happy talk about how premiums will be “lower than originally expected.” But the reality is starkly different. Based on a Manhattan Institute analysis of the HHS numbers, Obamacare will increase underlying insurance rates for younger men by an average of 97...

More taxing toons/humor at Reaganite Republican...

The average employer-provided family health insurance premiums have climbed $2,976 since 2009, according to an annual Kaiser Family Foundation survey released this week. They're up $3,671 compared with the year before President Obama took office. That's despite Obama's repeated promises that the health care reform law he championed would cut premiums by $2,500 in his first term. And while annual premium increases have moderated over the past two years, that's due to trends in the insurance market largely unrelated to ObamaCare, and trends the law could actually reverse.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Thursday that health insurance premiums will go up under Obamacare because people who did not buy insurance before, and thus had no premium at all, will now be forced to buy insurance. She also urged people to be “optimistic” about Obamacare. “You just see,” Pelosi said. “I mean be optimistic about it. It is a very, very exciting enterprise.” Pelosi told reporters during a Capitol Hill press conference on Thursday that she never promised that every single American

Do recently announced insurance rates for California's health exchange prove that worries about rate shock for health premiums are overblown? Not really. If anything, they suggest that concerns about big premium increases remain legitimate. At the end of last year, California’s health insurance regulators wrote a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius warning that state officials expected health insurance “rate shock as markets transition to [Obamacare’s] rating rules.” But last week, after insurers participating in California’s health insurance exchange announced rates for the first year, supporters of the health care law were quick to declare that there...

The good news is health care costs are going up more slowly. The bad news is that families continue to see larger medical bills. The typical cost to cover a family of four now exceeds $22,000, including the amount paid in insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs, according to the latest Milliman Medical Index for 2013. Milliman, an actuarial and benefits consultant, puts the cost at slightly less than the amount a family might pay to send a child to an in-state public college for a year. This year’s increase over last was only 6.3 percent, according to the analysis from...

Health Costs: Americans were promised that ObamaCare would make their health care more affordable. But a pair of studies show the new system has done nothing to lower health costs and will sharply raise them. Between 2009 and 2011, U.S. health spending rose just 3.9% a year, the lowest annual gains in decades. The Obama administration was quick to claim credit for the slowdown, with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius saying ObamaCare had "contributed to the slowest sustained growth in health spending in 50 years." But two new studies make it clear that ObamaCare wasn't behind the slowdown...

House DFLers are going after "The One Percent" in a big way. Make that the 1.1 percent of Minnesotans who earn the highest incomes. The DFL-controlled House passed a tax bill -- 69-64 with all Republicans voting "no" -- Wednesday, April 24, that creates a new, fourth income tax bracket with an 8.49 percent rate -- up from the current 7.85 percent rate -- for the top-earning 1.1 percent of Minnesotans -- couples with taxable incomes over $400,000. On top of that, the bill would impose a temporary 4 percent income tax surcharge on the 0.5 percent of taxpayers making...

Health care spending in Minnesota is on the rise again. Per-person spending by the state's nonprofit health insurance companies on medical care during 2012 rose 5.1 percent from the previous year, according data released Monday, April 1, by the Minnesota Council of Health Plans. That was a significant jump compared with the rate of medical cost inflation during 2010 and 2011, according to the St. Paul-based trade group. In 2011, for example, the annual increase in per-person spending was 0.4 percent -- likely because some patients delayed elective procedures during the slow economic recovery, experts say.

When I first read it, I thought this New York Times report from late last night was just late to the party. The Society of Actuaries had already released its analysis of the damage that ObamaCare will do to health-insurance costs, and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had already admitted that prices would go up as government forced people to buy bigger comprehensive policies. CNN even went so far as to ask whether Barack Obama and his administration had “misled” voters over the costs of ObamaCare.This study, though, is actually separate from the SoA’s analysis. The state of California commissioned this...

Remember way back to the 2008 Presidential campaign? Then Senator Obama made a promise, one he repeated over and over for the next few years. Here's a refresher of what he said: "If you’ve got insurance through your employer, you can keep your insurance. We estimate we can cut the average family’s premium by about $2,500 per year. If you don’t have health insurance, then we’re going to provide you the option of buying into the same kind of federal pool that both Sen. McCain and I enjoy as federal employees. We’re going to make sure insurance companies can’t discriminate...

<p>Short CNN articles must be excerpted to 50% of content.</p>

WASHINGTON -- The tax man is coming in 2013. And he's wearing surgical scrubs and has a stethoscope around his neck. Five new tax increases take effect Jan. 1 to help pay for the nation's health care overhaul. New provisions of the Affordable Care Act require affluent taxpayers to pay more for Medicare and, for the first time, have their investment income subject to Medicare taxes as well. Also, people who use flexible spending accounts for health care expenses will pay higher taxes. And taxpayers who spend a lot out of pocket on their health care will find it harder...

President Obama is trying to push through legislation to keep broader middle class income taxes from rising by Monday night. But they may still have to pay at least 2% more in payroll taxes. That's because the government had temporarily lowered the payroll tax rate in 2011 to 4.2% from 6.2%, in an effort to keep more cash in the pockets of Americans and provide a boost to the economy. The tax cut, which applies on the first $113,700 in annual earnings, is expiring in December. Come 2013, most of the country's 160 million workers will see smaller paychecks. No...

Families, Average Income $70,662: $4,138 tax increase. Baby Boomers, Average Income $95,099: $4,223 tax increase Low Income Workers, Average Income $24,757: $1,207 tax increase Millennials, Average Income $23,917: $1,099 tax increase Retirees, Average Income $42,553: $857 tax increase Note that these income figures are Adjusted Gross Income (AGI). Number of filers and AGI are estimates for 2013. Take a look at the full details here. Interestingly enough, liberals say this is a bad thing, but for them it would simply be returning to the Clinton Era Tax rates, right? Aren’t they the ones who have been saying those were the...

Northward winds are driving the record growth of winter sea ice around Antarctica, which stands in contrast to the extensive melting of the Arctic sea ice in recent years. Robert Lee Hotz has details on Lunch Break.

Without congressional action, at the end of 2012 the so-called “Bush-Era tax cuts” will expire, impacting nearly all taxpayers. Bush-Era tax cuts is the term generally used for the 2001 and 2003 Tax Reconciliation Acts. These changes were to last only 10 years, but a 2010 Tax Act extended the cuts until the end of 2012.... Let’s take a look at the following couple. They are doing well, having combined wages of $125,000. They have 2 young children, $2,000 of capital gains, and $500 of dividend income. Under current rules, they would have a federal income tax of $15,810. However,...

Date Debt Held by the Public Intragovernmental Holdings Total Public Debt Outstanding 09/27/2012 11,255,558,023,360.29 4,759,573,001,202.25 16,015,131,024,562.54 09/28/2012 11,269,585,800,039.32 4,796,655,607,346.57 16,066,241,407,385.89 10/01/2012 11,310,911,679,511.83 4,848,575,333,788.52 16,159,487,013,300.35

National Association for Business Economics recently surveyed say the country needs more fiscal stimulus through 2013, but by 2014 it should be time to throttle back. The reason for the delay: the sluggish nature of the country's economic recovery. A majority of the economists favor extending payroll tax cuts, current marginal income tax rates and current tax rates for dividends and capital gains for most or all taxpayers through 2013. Deep tax cuts that were passed under President George W. Bush expire at the end of December unless Congress takes action. At the center of debate: extending the cuts for...

I need help understanding what _resident 0bama just said…. PLEASE HELP! The _resident just said he will eliminate loop holes for the wealthy and that will increase their taxes. In the _resident’s next breath he said that will lower the taxes for “everyone”. If I understand correctly _resident 0bama wants to increase taxes on the rich 1% and then lower the taxes of the rich and 1%? Are they not included in the “everyone” he spoke of?