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Tuesday, December 29, 2009

The Big Lie Behind the Senate's Cadillac Health CareTax--It Screws the Middle Class

A major component of the Senate Obamacare bill is the 40% tax on "Cadillac" health plans. The bill defines Cadillac plans as any health insurance policy costing more than $8,500 (for an individual) and $23,000 (for a family).

The contention is that the tax is the element of the plan that will "bend the cost curve downward"  A Dec. 22 Washington Post editorial praised the Cadillac tax as "an essential element of the package." Political reported that a letter to the White House signed by 23 distinguished economists said it is "critical" because it "offers the most promising approach to reducing private-sector health care costs."

Even if these projections are correct and the Cadillac tax reduces government costs, there is the effect of the Cadillac tax that no one in the Democratic Party controlled Senate is willing to tell the public about,  the major tax burden increase on the middle class. Within the first six years of the plan 20% of families earning between $50,000 and $75,000 annually will be paying the Cadillac tax (but didn't the President say no one lest than $250,000.....?).

In today's NY Times, Bob Herbert explains:
 ... 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.

Rather than drive down the costs the Insurance Companies will charge for health care, the Cadillac tax will drive down the quality of heath care plan that the middle class will be able to pay for. It is all part of the President's strategy for creating a great American mediocrity.
Proponents say the tax will raise nearly $150 billion over 10 years, but there’s a catch. It’s not expected to raise this money directly. The dirty little secret behind this onerous tax is that no one expects very many people to pay it. The idea is that rather than fork over 40 percent in taxes on the amount by which policies exceed the threshold, employers (and individuals who purchase health insurance on their own) will have little choice but to ratchet down the quality of their health plans.
These lower-value plans would have higher out-of-pocket costs, thus increasing the very things that are so maddening to so many policyholders right now: higher and higher co-payments, soaring deductibles and so forth. Some of the benefits of higher-end policies can be expected in many cases to go by the boards: dental and vision care, for example, and expensive mental health coverage.
Proponents say this is a terrific way to hold down health care costs. If policyholders have to pay more out of their own pockets, they will be more careful — that is to say, more reluctant — to access health services. On the other hand, people with very serious illnesses will be saddled with much higher out-of-pocket costs. And a reluctance to seek treatment for something that might seem relatively minor at first could well have terrible (and terribly expensive) consequences in the long run.
If even the plan’s proponents do not expect policyholders to pay the tax, how will it raise $150 billion in a decade? Great question.

We all remember learning in school about the suspension of disbelief. This part of the Senate’s health benefits taxation scheme requires a monumental suspension of disbelief. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, less than 18 percent of the revenue will come from the tax itself. The rest of the $150 billion, more than 82 percent of it, will come from the income taxes paid by workers who have been given pay raises by employers who will have voluntarily handed over the money they saved by offering their employees less valuable health insurance plans.
Can you believe it?

I asked Richard Trumka, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., about this. (Labor unions are outraged at the very thought of a health benefits tax.) I had to wait for him to stop laughing to get his answer. “If you believe that,” he said, “I have some oceanfront property in southwestern Pennsylvania that I will sell you at a great price.”
Congress believes that companies will help their employees pay for the tax with higher wages. Congress is very wrong.
A survey of business executives by Mercer, a human resources consulting firm, found that only 16 percent of respondents said they would convert the savings from a reduction in health benefits into higher wages for employees. Yet proponents of the tax are holding steadfast to the belief that nearly all would do so.

“In the real world, companies cut costs and they pocket the money,” said Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America and a leader of the opposition to the tax. “Executives tell the shareholders: ‘Hey, higher profits without any revenue growth. Great!’ ”

The tax on health benefits is being sold to the public dishonestly as something that will affect only the rich, and it makes a mockery of President Obama’s repeated pledge that if you like the health coverage you have now, you can keep it.
The truth of the Cadillac taxes is that they are nothing but another lie about the Obamacare plan,  it promises the middle class higher taxes while reducing the quality of their medical care.

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