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The Affordable Care Act may soon find itself in legal jeopardy yet again, if the tea leaves from a federal judge's hearing in Texas yesterday are any indication. The big picture: Most on-the-ground accounts of the hearing say Judge Reed O'Connor seemed open to red states' latest challenge to the health care law, raising the prospect that what was once seen as a long-shot lawsuit could be a more serious threat than many experts had anticipated. The details: O'Connor's questioning yesterday seemed to suggest that he "may seek to roll back at least some of the consumer protections at the...

In an ongoing trend, unrelated to Obamacare, companies have been passing on more and more healthcare costs to employees. However, an ACA gotcha has impacted the way costs are passed on, with families taking a bigger hit than individuals at many companies. Please consider Companies Prepare to Pass More Health Costs to Workers. Many employers are betting that the Affordable Care Act's requirement that all Americans have health insurance starting in 2014 will bring more people into their plans who have previously opted out. That, along with other rising expenses, is prompting companies to raise workers' premium contributions, steer them...

The cheapest Obamacare health insurance plan will cost a family $20,000 per year. Americans will be forced to purchase the plan or face the Obama IRS. CNS News reported: In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year. Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS. The IRS’s assumption that the cheapest plan for a family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives...

Smith & Nephew eliminated nearly 100 jobs in Memphis and Andover, Mass., on Thursday, Jan. 31, as the medical device company cuts expenses in an effort to offset tax hikes included in the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act includes a 2.3 percent medical device tax, which took effect Jan. 1. The London-based company, which employs about 1,800 people in Memphis, said the new tax will cost the industry about $30 billion over 10 years. “(The tax) has impacted a number of companies across the U.S.,” said Joe Metzger, senior vice president of corporate communications. “Smith & Nephew is...

In 2013, the tax increases in Obamacare will increasingly conspire against kitchen-table family healthcare decisions. As just one example, below are some of the taxes that will impact the purchase of dental braces: Obamacare Medical Device Tax: As of Jan.1, Obamacare imposes a new tax of 2.3 percent on medical device manufacturers, including those who make dental braces. The tax is imposed on gross sales -- even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. While the tax will be paid to the IRS by the manufacturer, the tax will be passed along as a higher...

With the fiscal cliff deal and many Obamacare taxes taking effect, Americans will be slammed with an estimated $264 billion in new taxes this year alone—making 2013 memorable for delivering one of the largest one-year tax increases in American history. The math breakdown of the new taxes is simple: Key parts of the Bush tax cuts will expire as a result of the new fiscal cliff legislation, hitting American taxpayers with a tax bill of about $39.5 billion each year for the next decade. … Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi issued a projection that the tax burden will cut GDP...

Remember that Nancy Pelosi told us that we needed to pass ObamaCare to find out what’s in it. Barack Obama promised to “bend the cost curve,” too. Looks like both of them were right, at least according to the Paper of Record, which discovers to its surprise that dumping nebulous mandates on insurers causes them to bend the cost curve sharply upward (via Instapundit): Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid...

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service on Wednesday released final rules for a new tax on medical devices, products ranging from surgical sutures to knee replacement implants, that starts next year ... ... The tax applies mostly to devices used and implanted by medical professionals, including items as complex as pacemakers or as simple as tongue depressors. Products sold for humanitarian reasons, such as experimental cancer treatment devices, are not exempt from the tax. ... it remains "an open question" when latex gloves come under the tax

The Obama Administration proposal to fix the "fiscal cliff" coming at the end of the year called for $1.6 trillion in tax hikes over current policy. House Speaker John Boehner said he was "flabbergasted" when presented with the proposal this week. Boehner tells "Fox News Sunday" that after Geithner briefed him privately on Thursday, he looked at Geithner and said, "You can't be serious." Boehner called it "silliness" that the White House was, among other things, asking Congress to give up its power to set the nation's debt limit. Earlier today, Geithner insisted that the Obama Administration wouldn't relent on...

We need a catchy keword for Obama Taxes. Last term it was Obamacare, which has a negative connotation to many people. The hiking of the tax rates for working Americans is the Goal of the Obama Administration. Period. The reason: the free-loaders of this country [who expect working Americans to support them] do not want their benefits cut. At one time, people referred to Massachusetts as Taxachusetts Maybe some catchy phrase might be found to put a label on Obama and his tax plan. Some Links: Obama tax plan hashtag hijacked by conservative think tankHeritage Foundation buys a promoted tweet...

Freedom Works has put together a list of companies that will be laying of employees as a result of President Barack Obama's health care law: Welch Allyn Welch Allyn, a company that manufactures medical diagnostic equipment in central New York, announced in September that they would be laying off 275 employees, or roughly 10% of their workforce over the next three years. One of the major reasons discussed for the layoffs was a proactive response to the Medical Device Tax mandated by the new healthcare law. Dana Holding Corp. As recently as a week ago, a global auto parts manufacturing...

Nearly $1 billion in payments to hospitals over the next year will be based in part on patient satisfaction, determined by a 27-question government survey administered to patients. Hospitals with high scores will get a bonus payment. Those with low ones will lose money. The program is part of a much broader pay-for-performance system built into President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul. Many medical professionals have balked at the questionnaires, saying they are unfair. Older hospitals in inner cities, or facilities that tend to accept patients through cramped and busy emergency rooms, say their scores automatically suffer through no fault of...

The housing market may indeed be recovering, as many experts suggest, but investors are still struggling to understand what, if any, taxes they'll owe upon selling their homes. At issue is how the new "Medicare tax" will apply to real-estate transactions. Passed in 2010 to help fund the health-care overhaul, this 3.8% surtax kicks in next year on many forms of investment income—including some interest, dividends, rents and capital gains. While its effect on home sales won't be as far-reaching as many fear, the Medicare tax could pack a punch for certain investors. It is not a sales tax. And...

President Obama's entire campaign strategy is based on an age-old political trick that he can overcome his weakness on the economy by changing the subject. His strategists concluded more than a year ago that he was unlikely to win a second term based on his promise to restore the economy to full health and put tens of millions of long unemployed Americans back work. So they fashioned a divisive campaign that was heavily focused on single issue voters -- women, for one, and the large Hispanic vote, for another -- in a handful of critical battleground states he needs to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional budget analysts are now estimating that nearly 6 million Americans — most of them in the middle class — will have to pay a tax penalty for not getting health insurance once President Barack Obama's health care law is fully in place.

A year and a half after the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, bureaucrats at the IRS and Health and Human Services issued an 18-page report outlining new regulations that will dramatically increase health care costs for small and large businesses alike. The regulations, written by an IRS attorney, arbitrarily redefine "full time employee" as someone who works 30 hours a week for a business. Traditionally, most private businesses have defined "full time employee" as someone who works 40 hours a week. With this new regulation, the federal government is now removing the right of businesses to...

U.S. health insurance premiums have climbed faster than wages and inflation this year, and look poised to accelerate in 2013, adding to voter concerns about soaring healthcare costs ahead of November elections for the White House and Congress. A study released on Tuesday showed that premiums for employer-sponsored health plans, which cover about 149 million Americans, grew a modest 4 percent to $15,745 in 2012. It was a substantially slower rate of growth than in past years, including 2011, when premiums jumped 9 percent. But the study's authors at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational...

Skaneatles Falls, NY -- Welch Allyn told employees at companywide meetings this morning that it plans to cut 275 jobs, or about 10 percent of its worldwide workforce. The uncertainty surrounding the future of the Obama health care package is creating turmoil in the domestic market, [Chief Executive Steve Meyer] said. Hospitals and doctor offices aren't investing in new equipment until they see how the health care issues will play out, Meyer said. Welch Allyn and other medical device makers face a new federal tax hike come January when a new 2.3 percent tax on sales of medical devices called...

Any year now, Democrats may start to ask themselves if it might have been better had John Roberts not changed his mind. If they would be better off with Obamacare out of its and our misery, a bone of contention now safely buried, and not as a bone in their throats. For one thing, they still have the issue upon them -- the historic triumph they don't dare mention but which Republicans happily do. Second, were Obamacare no longer the law, we might be seeing an uptick in hiring right now. Instead, that will be deferred until after November (and...

The Republican National Committee chairman says President Obama has “blood on [his] hands” for cutting Medicare. Mitt Romney blasts the president for having “robbed” the program of $700 billion. Vice President Biden accuses Romney and running mate Paul Ryan of “gutting” Medicare. And, inevitably, President Obama warned that Romney-Ryan would “end Medicare as we know it.” Aren’t you glad we’re having a sober policy discussion about how to rein in entitlement spending?