A Less Than Honest Policy

The New York Times ^ | December 28, 2009 | Bob Herbert

[ConjunctionJunction]

There is a middle-class tax time bomb ticking in the Senate’s version of President Obama’s effort to reform health care.

The bill that passed the Senate with such fanfare on Christmas Eve would impose a confiscatory 40 percent excise tax on so-called Cadillac health plans, which are popularly viewed as over-the-top plans held only by the very wealthy. In fact, it’s a tax that in a few years will hammer millions of middle-class policyholders, forcing them to scale back their access to medical care.

Which is exactly what the tax is designed to do.

The tax would kick in on plans exceeding $23,000 annually for family coverage and $8,500 for individuals, starting in 2013. In the first year it would affect relatively few people in the middle class. But because of the steadily rising costs of health care in the U.S., more and more plans would reach the taxation threshold each year.

Within three years of its implementation, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the tax would apply to nearly 20 percent of all workers with employer-provided health coverage in the country, affecting some 31 million people. Within six years, according to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, the tax would reach a fifth of all households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 annually. Those families can hardly be considered very wealthy.

[ConjunctionJunction]

But remember, once voters learn about what's really in these bills, they will LOVE it!

/sarc

[fightin bronco]

How do you get more people on govt healthcare, make it too expensive to be on private. I believe this is a deliberate attempt to shrink the private market.

[scooby321]

I wonder if Ben Nelson included this in is TV ads?

[Voter62vb]

“There is a middle-class tax time bomb ticking in the Senate’s version of President Obama’s effort to reform health care.”

No need for the fawning verbosity, NYT:

...a tax bomb: President Obama’s health care.

[ConjunctionJunction]

I believe it is designed to collapse the private health insurance market, so then they will get single-payer. That’s what they want.

[Uncle Miltie]

Did the cocaine delivery not come to the NYT last night?

[I Buried My Guns]

"...it’s a tax that in a few years will..."

There is our "out": The Civil War will come much sooner than that, so I'm not worried. Once the mighty elites have fallen, and either executed or serving long prison sentences, we will rebuild our nation and culture in a more adult and common-sense fashion.

[griswold3]

There will be only ashes left for the ‘progressives’ to rule over if they keep this up.

Well, at least they’ll be ruling over something, even if it is death and destruction. They are truly evil.

[Mrs. Don-o]

NYT. My stars.

[redpoll]

>>>How do you get more people on govt healthcare, make it too expensive to be on private. I believe this is a deliberate attempt to shrink the private market.<<<

Which is exactly what Obama meant when he made that comment several years back that he’ll have to work incrementally toward his goal of nationalized health care. In his own words, it might take 15 or 20 years.