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Administration Finalizes Obamacare Tax Over Holiday Weekend
Washington Free Beacon ^ | 12/4/2013 | Elizabeth Harrington

Posted on 12/04/2013 1:45:41 PM PST by markomalley

The Obama administration quietly finalized the Health Insurance Tax (HIT) over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, a provision in Obamacare that will cost nearly $60 billion over the next five years and raise health care premiums by 3 percent.

The final rule, published on Nov. 27, imposes a fee beginning in 2014 for health insurers with premium revenues over $25 million per year. The annual tax is levied for “United States health risks,” and is hidden from consumers since it is directly assessed on health insurance companies.

David R. Burton, a senior fellow in economic policy at the Heritage Foundation, said the tax will disproportionally impact small businesses.

“Most large corporations self-insure,” Burton told the Washington Free Beacon. “They may or may not have stop-loss insurance. Medium-sized businesses will self-insure but then have what’s called stop-loss insurance so that if their claims exceed a certain amount the insurance company will compensate them. The largest corporations are self-insured, period.”

“In contrast, small companies actually buy health insurance and it’s only the actual health insurance that is subject to the tax, self-insured plans are not,” he said.

An analysis by the American Action Forum found that under the tax, premiums for small businesses and households will increase as much as 3 percent over the next ten years, or roughly $5,000 per family over the decade.

According to the Business Council of New York State, the average family will see a $270 increase in their premiums in 2014. Over the next decade, the tax will cost families $5,080.

“Some of the more problematic issues of the tax are that revenue raised by the tax does not even directly fund new health care benefits but instead goes into the general treasury,” the Business Council said. “Additionally, small businesses will pay a disproportionate share of these taxes since these employers are far more likely to purchase insurance rather than self-insure.”

The final rule sets explicit revenues that the tax must generate each year, beginning with $8 billion in 2014.  The government will collect $11.3 billion from the HIT in 2015 and 2016; $13.9 billion in 2017; and $14.3 billion in 2018, a total of $58.8 billion over five years. Thereafter, the tax will be increased subject to premium growth.

“It’s an odd sort of tax,” Burton said.  “It’s not at a specific rate, but it raises a specific amount of revenue from insurers who underwrite health insurance outside of the exchanges. You basically have a set amount of money and then it’s allocated among the insurers based on the amount of health insurance premiums they actually wrote.”

The tax is also hidden from consumers. “They won’t see it,” Burton said. “It’s in effect hidden because it’s imposed on the insurance companies, but it’s a cost to them that they have to recover by raising premiums.”

Burton said estimates for premium increases range from 2.5 to 3 percent. The health insurance tax joins the list of Obamacare tax increases, including the medical device tax, payroll taxes, an excise tax on “Cadillac plans,” and others.

“It’s just one more way they’re raising the cost of employing people,” Burton said. “It’s hidden so people don’t really understand why, that’s probably one of the more insidious aspects of it is that it’s hiding the true effect of it because of the way it’s structured.”

“If people saw that 3 percent tax on their bill every month they would feel differently about it,” he said.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Business/Economy; Government
KEYWORDS: aca; administration; finalizes; holiday; obama; obamacar; tax; weekend
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To: Brad from Tennessee

War on the middle class is exactly what’s going on. This should be part of every Campaign in 2014.


61 posted on 12/06/2013 5:21:13 AM PST by samsmom
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To: markomalley

Hmmm.... I call BS on the increase for an “average” family being $240 in 2014. We were notified that our premiums are going up $120 PER MONTH starting on Jan. 1st with no change in our insurance policy as my husband’s employer already made those necessary compliance changes last year. Over the last few years our premiums have gone up over 300% ALREADY (before this latest increase), and we went from NO deductible (technically a $1500 deductible which was paid for by our employer) to a $3000 deductible paid out of our pockets.

IOW - ALL of these estimated figures are woefully UNDERestimated, and don’t even reflect the truth of what has already happened to the “average family”.


62 posted on 12/06/2013 5:52:04 AM PST by LibertyRocks
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To: samsmom
[War on the middle class is exactly what’s going on. This should be part of every Campaign in 2014.]

“The Democrats War on the Middle Class.” Making that suggestion to the RNC might be a waste of time but if you call GOP congresspeople in your state and talk to a staff person you can articulate this slogan from a personal perspective.

Bush 41 won with “Michael Dukakis—the liberal governor of Massachusetts.”

63 posted on 12/06/2013 1:22:33 PM PST by Brad from Tennessee (A politician can't give you anything he hasn't first stolen from you.)
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To: RetiredArmy
HE IS THE ONLY WAY OUT OF THIS GARBAGE DUMP WE NOW HAVE!!!

That is why i began this collection of wake-up stats years ago!

64 posted on 12/06/2013 6:06:37 PM PST by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: Ingtar
This is strictly anecdotal, but I posted this article on my fb and the headline on twitter, and NONE of the liberal nut cases in my radius responded. In times gone by, I would have never gotten this sarcasm out without some arrogant nitwit insisting I was misrepresenting the facts [by adding two words and two letters]. But, silence ... as if they are thinking about the inescapable irony it is. Could they be?

In one FR thread I noticed someone mention 'if anyone will talk about it." and a response "they don't anymore." Is it a trend? If so, it would be a positive sign, or just maybe a relief that they simply shut up and listen for a few months. I could get used to the silence, at least for the Holidays. ;)

Obamacare Supplemental Health Insurance Tax

-link-

Insurance premiums get the equivalent of the federal gas tax.

The government will collect $11.3 billion from the OSHIT in 2015 and 2016; $13.9 billion in 2017; and $14.3 billion in 2018, a total of $58.8 billion over five years. Thereafter, the tax will be increased subject to premium growth.

“It’s an odd sort of tax,” Burton said. “It’s not at a specific rate, but it raises a specific amount of revenue from insurers who underwrite health insurance outside of the exchanges. You basically have a set amount of money and then it’s allocated among the insurers based on the amount of health insurance premiums they actually wrote.”

The tax is also hidden from consumers. “They won’t see it,” Burton said. “It’s in effect hidden because it’s imposed on the insurance companies, but it’s a cost to them that they have to recover by raising premiums.”

ACA, we had to pass it to see what's in it.

#takeapill

Maybe they all just missed it. :0

65 posted on 12/07/2013 2:40:22 AM PST by ri4dc (Cut your cable. Buy more ammo. 'This war is lost!' The worst is yet to come.)
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To: ri4dc; FlingWingFlyer; Graewoulf

I intended to copy you both to #65 since you gave me the idea :)


66 posted on 12/07/2013 2:44:32 AM PST by ri4dc (Cut your cable. Buy more ammo. 'This war is lost!' The worst is yet to come.)
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To: markomalley

Obama commits one more impeachable offence.


67 posted on 12/07/2013 10:54:38 AM PST by Candor7 (Obama fascism article:(http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html))
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To: markomalley

like most of the mercedez-marxist/fascist policies of Obama, BIG BUSINESS and BIG UNIONS (they “self insure”) escape the major affects of an Obama policy

again, this is not a “tax on health insurance premiums” spread to EVERY FORM of health insurance premium, it is a tax, and an attack (artificial raise in the cost of) the private economy of health insurers and private economy health insurance - leaving customers misdirected as the tax is implemented to blame their insurer instead of blameing the real culprit - Obama


68 posted on 12/07/2013 2:14:34 PM PST by Wuli
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To: FlingWingFlyer

So the house passed a secret tax to add to the obammmeycare debacle???


69 posted on 12/07/2013 2:25:42 PM PST by Foolsgold (Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber)
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To: RetiredArmy

I was reading your bio and decided to check your previous posts. Repentence would only delay the judgment to come. Do a study on God’s view of child sacrifice and the shedding of innocent blood in regards to sacrifice.

“However, the LORD did not turn from the fierceness of His great wrath with which His anger burned against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked Him. And the LORD said, “I will remove Judah also from My sight, as I have removed Israel. And I will cast off Jerusalem, this city which I have chosen, and the temple (house) of which I said, ‘My name shall be there’.”
“Surely at the command (mouth) of the LORD it came upon Judah, to remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also for the innocent blood which he shed, for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; AND THE LORD WOULD NOT FORGIVE.” (All caps mine) 2 Kings 23: 26 & 27 and 24: 3 & 4

God’s view of justice in regards to time is interesting. Those who are before His throne asking when the time will be fulfilled gives a hint and one other time when He says that His judgment will avenge the deaths of all the prophets.


70 posted on 12/07/2013 2:48:48 PM PST by huldah1776
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To: huldah1776
I was reading your bio and decided to check your previous posts. Repentence would only delay the judgment to come.

This will be my one and only response to your post. Obviously you don't know there are two judgments. The first is the Great White Throne Judgment, for the LOST only. Those that refused the Blood of Christ and His free offer of Grace. The second, really not a judgment, especially for sin. It is the Bema Seat for rewards. For what we do in His name AFTER we are saved. Not for judgment of being lost. Regardless of what rewards we receive or get burned up as wood, hay or stubble, we are still saved. We still go into His kingdom. SO, your assumption that repentance means nothing is absolutely wrong and will remain wrong. This is all I have to say about it. If you have different views based on what YOU believe, then that is your problem. I am not going to argue the point with you.

71 posted on 12/07/2013 5:26:41 PM PST by RetiredArmy (I am proud to be a Christian and follower of my Lord Jesus Christ. Time is short for U to know Him!)
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To: huldah1776

And PS: Your scripture was UNDER THE LAW, BEFORE Grace. Grace changed EVERYTHING friend. Go read the BOOK!


72 posted on 12/07/2013 5:30:51 PM PST by RetiredArmy (I am proud to be a Christian and follower of my Lord Jesus Christ. Time is short for U to know Him!)
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To: markomalley

The Great Turkey will gobble.


73 posted on 12/07/2013 9:21:26 PM PST by Eleutheria5 (End the occupation. Annex today.)
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To: RetiredArmy

Sorry this is such a long post, but I love theology.

Ah, the Book. The Word of God. In the flesh, Jesus, Yeshua Messhiah. I have read it 7 times cover to cover and on the eighth.

I do have a bad habit of assuming that who I am conversing with knows my point of reference and I am truly sorry I did not explain before quoting. The verse I quoted is the only reference in the Old Testament when God does not forgive. (In the New Testament, I am sure you know, there is one other.)

The judgment/reward you are referring to is after death, and the repentance is that of the individual. In the verses I quoted God’s judgment is against the nation of Judah (“His anger burned against Judah”) in this space time physical life. I was referring to God not forgiving the nation of Judah, not an individual. I believe God does in fact still work on the national level as He did in the Old Testament and He also works in the lives of the individual, bringing the gentiles into a relationship through Jesus. God did in fact forgive Manasseh who murdered his sons by sacrificing them to molech. His story is in 2 Chronicles 33. He humbled himself before God, repented and tore down the alters. That is the most powerful portrait of Grace I know, and Manasseh’s grandson, Josiah, is the king of Israel who brought revival to the Israelites.

My point about the timing was in reference to the deferred judgment of the nation of Judah. God did not reveal His wrath until after Josiah’s son did evil as Manasseh had done but he never repented. God’s wrath was the 70 year dispersement described in the book of Lamentations.

When God spoke to the Israelites right before they entered the promised land, He said a couple of profound things (as usual). Here is what I wrote when I did the study on God’s response to child sacrifice:

God’s people were to go into a land already occupied. They were not given this land because they were better than the nations of the land but because the nations were doing what God hates, and when you do this there are consequences. National consequences.

Deuteronomy 9: 5 “It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you, in order to confirm the oath (word) which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob.”

Deuteronomy 12:29-32...”when the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations which you are going in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, beware that you are not ensnared to follow them (after them), after they are destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods, that I also may do likewise?’ You shall not behave thus toward the Lord your God, for every abominable act which the Lord hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do, you shall not add to nor take away from it.”

Deuteronomy 18:9 -12... “When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate (do according to) the detestable things of those nations. There shall not be formed among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord; and because of these detestable things the Lord your God will drive them out before you.”

Therefore, God was judging the nations for sacrificing their children to the demons and their handmade idols (among other abominations). He warned His people that if they followed the same practices, they too would be judged as a nation. God does not say one thing He doesn’t mean. When Jesus rules the world, if a nation does not tythe to Him in honor, the nation has a drought.

It’s 4 a.m. I hope this makes sense.

I’ve wanted to do a historical study on every nation that ever practiced human sacrifice and find out why they no longer exist. Interesting parallel is that the Native Americans practiced human sacrifice, were invaded, and now the nation that exists on their land is doing the same thing.

http://www.examiner.com/article/evidence-found-of-human-sacrifice-north-america

http://www.amazon.com/Cannibalism-Headhunting-Human-Sacrifice-America/dp/0911469338


74 posted on 12/08/2013 1:15:08 AM PST by huldah1776
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To: huldah1776

I did not read your post back. I told you I was not going to debate it with you. You have your opinions and I have mine. I made mine and I am done with you so quit writing to me.


75 posted on 12/08/2013 5:55:37 AM PST by RetiredArmy (I am proud to be a Christian and follower of my Lord Jesus Christ. Time is short for U to know Him!)
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To: RetiredArmy

It’s a good thing God listens to our apologies.


76 posted on 12/08/2013 7:54:25 AM PST by huldah1776
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To: RetiredArmy

God’s grace did not start at the Resurrection of Christ, His grace looked forward before and now looks back at that moment of redemption. “His lovingkindness is everlasting” is the warrior King David’s experience of grace.


77 posted on 12/08/2013 8:04:14 AM PST by huldah1776
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To: markomalley

Am I reading this correctly? It is an odd sort of tax, not at a specific rate but raises a specific amount of revenue and which then goes into the general coffers? What could go wrong with that?


78 posted on 12/08/2013 12:23:28 PM PST by ladylee (LadyLee)
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To: Paladin2

Communism/Socialism/Liberalism is a mental disorder.


79 posted on 12/09/2013 8:50:13 AM PST by rbmillerjr (Ted Cruz...2016-24 ...A New Conservative Era)
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To: ri4dc

” - - - Obamacare Supplemental Health Insurance Tax - - - “

You are WAY to PC with your substitution of “Supplemental” for the intended reality of US President Valerie Jarrett’s, and her teleprompter speaker, Barry. Use their reality word: SOCIALIZED !

BTW, the Federal Fecal Finger, thanks to Rand Paul and a few other RINO Establishment Democrat wannabes, have come up with “RINO Socialized Health Insurance Tax.”

Thus, the Federal Fecal Finger has touched a perfectly good Health Insurance System and turned it into OSHIT and RSHIT.


80 posted on 12/09/2013 9:25:19 PM PST by Graewoulf (Democrats' Obamacare Socialist Health Insur. Tax violates U.S. Constitution AND Anti-Trust Law.)
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