http://economics.mit.edu/files/4895
Impacts of the Senate High Cost Insurance Excise Tax on Wages: Updated
Jonathan Gruber, November 20, 2009
The excise tax on high-cost insurance now before the Senate presents a rare “win- win” opportunity: it can both finance necessary expansions in health care for our lowest income citizens and provide an effective tool to lower health care spending. By lowering health care spending, the high-cost insurance tax will shift more compensation into wages and improve the standard of living of U.S. workers. Estimates from the Joint Tax Committee (JCT) can be used to demonstrate the important effect of the High-cost insurance tax in terms of increasing worker wages. Using data from the JCT, I show in this memo that the high-cost insurance tax will
• Raise net worker wages from 2013 through 2019 by $234 billion
• By 2019, net wages per insured household will be $700 higher because of this
excise tax
• Almost two-thirds of these gains accrue to families with incomes below $100,000,
and more than 90% of these gains accrue to families with incomes below $200,000
This memo updates a similar analysis dated November 5, 2009
Background: The JCT Estimates of the High-cost insurance Tax
This analysis relies on four documents issued by the JCT. The first is their October 13, 2009 memo which provided the score of the revised High-cost insurance tax as in the Senate Finance Committee mark. This memo shows the year-by-year revenues raised by the High-cost insurance tax. Importantly, the memo highlights the two different ways the High-cost insurance tax raises revenues. The first is through actual excise tax receipts paid by those high cost plans that remain above the High-cost insurance threshold. The second is through the fact that firms will spend less on health insurance – and this reduced spending will be shifted to workers in the form of higher wages. This division is very informative: the JCT estimates that about 80% of the revenues raised by the High-cost insurance tax will come from revenue from higher wages, not from the excise tax itself.
It is important to note that the conclusion that lower employer insurance spending will lead to higher wages is not mere speculation: it is strongly supported by both economic theory and evidence. This is why it is the basis for the modeling done by both JCT and CBO.
The second document is the JCT’s September 17, 2009 letter to Senator Orrin Hatch which showed the distributional consequences of an earlier version of the High- cost insurance tax, which had a lower rate (35%) but did not have adjustments for location, worker age, or high risk industries. These helpful tables show the distribution of the revenue burden of that tax by income group.
The third document is a March 24, 2009 JCT document which provides information on the distribution of marginal tax rates by income category.
The fourth document is the November 18, 2009 score of the Reid proposal in the Senate which lays out the score for his further revised High-cost insurance excise tax. Unfortunately, this document does not provide the details that are presented in the October 13 memo, so I cannot precisely break out the revenues into those from paying the excise tax and those from higher wages. However, the effect on wages is directly proportional to the off-budget revenues raised from payroll taxation under this legislation, so I can use the ratio of off-budget revenues in the revised score (31.3) to off-budget revenues in the October 13th score (41.7) to estimate that wage effects would be 75% as large as would be the case under the SFC proposal.
Interpreting the JCT Estimate
The JCT estimates can be used infer the impact of the High-cost insurance tax on wages. This is done as follows:
• Use the October 13th score to compute the share of revenues that are raised from taxing wages, as opposed to the excise tax itself. This falls from about 90% in 2013 to about 80% in 2015 and beyond. Assume that this distribution is the same for the November 18th score.
• Use the September 17 results to assess how these total revenues are distributed by income group. I assume the distribution for the November 18th proposal is the same as for the September 17th proposal. I also assume that the share of revenues raised from taxing wages is the same for all income groups
• Use the March 24th memo to get marginal tax rates for each income category
• Compute the increase in employee wages for each income category by taking the
total revenues raised from taxing wages (total revenues times share raised from taxing wages) and dividing by the average marginal tax rate for that income group.
• Compute the net gain to that income group by subtracting off the total tax burden on that group from the High-cost insurance tax (once again assuming the distribution of the November 18th proposal is the same as the September 17 proposal)
• Multiply those net gains by 0.75 to account for the reduction in the tax base from October 13th to November 18th
Note that the JCT distributional information is only available every other year; I imputed the missing years by assuming the average ratio of gross (or net) wages to revenues raised in the surrounding years.
Results
The results of this analysis are presented in Table 1. The second column shows the year by year revenues from the High-cost insurance tax, while the third column shows the net wage implications for workers, after subtracting out High-cost insurance tax payments.
Key findings from the table are:
• Worker wages rise by $55 billion by 2019
• This amounts to almost $700 per insured household in 2019
• Worker wages rise by $234 billion in aggregate over this time period
• This is also a very progressive wage adjustment. In every year, the share of wage gains accruing to those with incomes below $100,000 is about two-thirds of the total, and the share of wage gains accruing to those with incomes below $200,000 is over 90% of the total.
Table 1: Impacts of the High-cost insurance Tax
Year
High-cost insurance Tax Revenue ($ billions)
Net Rise in Wages ($ billions)
Net Rise in Wages per Household ($)
2013
7
13
160
2014
13
22
270
2015
17
25
320
2016
22
33
410
2017
26
39
490
2018
30
47
590
2019
35
55
690
Total
149
234
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=97179
Rick Perry
Press Release - Romney Should Repudiate Government-Mandated Health Care
October 11, 2011
Campaign 2012
Perry for President
The American Presidency Project
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Romney falsely denied his paid advisors used Romneycare to develop Obamacare
AUSTIN — At his news conference this afternoon, Mitt Romney falsely denied that MIT economist Jonathan Gruber played a key role in creating Romneycare and the individual mandate that served as the blueprint for Obamacare.
“Mitt Romney has real problems shooting straight with the American people, especially on the clear policy and personnel links between Romneycare and Obamacare,” said Perry spokesman Mark Miner. “Mr. Romney looked right into the camera and denied the facts — that his advisors helped craft the government-mandated Romneycare and Obamacare health care plans.
“We call on Mr. Romney to repudiate government-mandated health care as crafted in Romneycare and admit his policies and advisors ushered in Obamacare’s costly and destructive health care mandates.”
Jonathan Gruber has been identified as a Romney advisor by multiple media outlets over several years:
The Boston Globe (April 6, 2006) [1]
NPR (April 11, 2006) [2]
The New York Times (April 12, 2006) [3]
The Wall Street Journal (April 18, 2011) [4]
NBC News (Oct. 10, 2011) [5]
Gruber identifies himself as a “paid advisor to the Romney Administration and Massachusetts Legislature during the development of health care reform in Massachusetts” in a paper he wrote for the National Bureau of Economic Research, published in June 2011. [6]
On March 29, 2011, The Washington Post wrote, “Aside from Romney, Gruber is the man most responsible for the Massachusetts plan.” [7]
The Washington Post also wrote on March 29, 2011, that Gruber is considered to be “Romney’s number one point man on Romneycare.” [8]
Gruber’s Relationship With Obamacare
Gruber was awarded a $297,600 consulting contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on June 19, 2009 to provide “technical assistance in evaluating options for national healthcare reform.” [9]
Gruber was previously under a $95,000 contract with HHS from March 25, 2009 to July 25, 2009. [10]
After advising Romney, Gruber advised Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards on health-care policy during the 2008 campaign. He has been described as “possibly the [Democratic] party’s most influential health-care expert.” [11] [12]
Romneycare Paved Way for Obamacare; Romney’s Plan Is Just Like Obama’s
The Washington Post reported, “In [Gruber’s] opinion, without the Massachusetts plan the federal individual mandate plan wouldn’t have garnered acceptance and gotten through.” [7]
Gruber said “it’s likely” Obamacare wouldn’t have become law without Romneycare. [7]
Gruber said Romneycare was “widely discussed ... dozens of times” in Obamacare talks. [7]
Gruber said of Obamacare: “Basically, it’s the same thing” as Romneycare. [13]
SOURCES
“Health Bill Premiums May Exceed Predictions,” Boston Globe, 4/6/06,
http://www.scribd.com/doc/68388881/Health-Bill-Premiums-May-Exceed-Predictions
“Massachusetts Renews Discussion on Universal Care,” NPR, 4/11/06, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5336532
“A Health Fix That Is Not a Fantasy,” New York Times, 4/12/06, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/business/12leonhardt.html
“Praise Romney Doesn’t Need,” Wall Street Journal, 4/18/11, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703916004576270991154333376.html
“White House used Mitt Romney health-care law as blueprint for federal law,” NBC News, 10/11/11, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44854320/ns/politics-decision_2012/#.TpRelZwu6Ps
“The Impacts of the Affordable Care Act: How Reasonable Are the Projections?” Jonathan Gruber, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2011, http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/6829
“EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: RomneyCare author Jonathan Gruber,” Washington Post, 3/29/11, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/exclusive-interview-romneycare-author-jonathan-gruber/2011/03/04/AF2WJorB_blog.html
“Former Romney adviser: Without Romneycare, Obamacare would never have happened,” Washington Post, 3/29/11, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/former-romney-adviser-romneycare-created-obamacare/2011/03/03/AFKY4cvB_blog.html
Federal Business Opportunities, accessed 10/11/11, https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=3032e84fe13f650770acee31c1372a1b&_cview=0
“On Jonathan Gruber and disclosure,” ABC News, 1/9/10, http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/01/on-jonathan-gruber-and-disclosure/
“Clinton Presents Plan For Universal Coverage,” Washington Post, 9/18/07, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/17/AR2007091701026.html
“For Democrats, Pragmatism On Universal Health Care,” Washington Post, 7/10/07, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/09/AR2007070902029.html
“The New Republic: Why Romney’s 2012 Looks Grim,” NPR, 3/31/10, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125382175