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Well now it's official - the Affordable Health Care Act (ObamaCare) is going to make sure your health care is more "affordable" by making sure you don't use untaxed money to pay for allergy, cough and cold, acid reducers, or any variety of over-the-counter health care products.

For those not familiar, flexible spending accounts (for healthcare) are a benefit employers may offer. It allows an employee to put up to $5000 (per family) of pre-tax money into an account out of which you may be reimbusered for out-of-pocket healthcare costs, such as co-pays, deductables, etc. Currently you can also be reimbursed for the cost of over the counter medications - these can range from cough syrup and aspirin to patented medications (for instance a number of the long term acid reducers) that used to require a prescription, but are now OTC.

So the "Affordable Health Care Act" is now going to make sure you can't buy those medications using pre-tax dollars (unless you have a prescription - which usually means paying for a doctor's visit)- effectively making them more expensive. This tax increase will fall disproportionately on uninsured and lower-income workers, who depend on these medications as a way to avoid costly doctor's visits.

So here is ObamaCare in a nutshell - making health care more expensive, driving more people into doctor's offices, and providing financial incentives for insured patients to demand more costly prescription drugs from their doctors. No wonder they had to pass it in the middle of the night! And no wonder the drug companies were big supporters of this piece of excrement!

1 posted on 09/10/2010 6:52:31 AM PDT by In Maryland
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To: In Maryland

The guidance is probably about 20,000 pages.


2 posted on 09/10/2010 6:53:52 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: In Maryland

The word NOT should be attached to every bill passed by congress

Affordable Health Care NOT act.


3 posted on 09/10/2010 7:02:19 AM PDT by DManA
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To: In Maryland
Correction it was $5000, it is now $2500 with more restrictions.

Families of special needs kids are pissed....

Medical deductibility goes from a threshold of 7.5% AGI to 10% AGI.

Also the tax on medical appliances.

Again special needs families are pissed.

4 posted on 09/10/2010 7:03:32 AM PDT by taildragger ((Palin / Mulally 2012 ))
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To: In Maryland

“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

Needs repeating often.


10 posted on 09/10/2010 9:04:14 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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