As health insurance reform moves through Congress, the Senate is proposing to pay for it, in part, by taxing insurance companies that offer comprehensive health plans. This tax would ultimately be passed on to workers. The bill just approved by the House does not include this tax.
It happens often in Washington: A perception emerges and soon hardens into fact. Take the proposed tax on high-cost insurance plans in the Senate's health-care legislation. Because organized labor took the lead in opposing the tax, the assumption took hold that it would hit unions the hardest.
Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said today that the agreement reached Thursday with the White House on the Senate’s proposed health insurance excise tax moves the country much closer to providing affordable health insurance for all Americans.
One of the few things we can be sure of when Congress finally enacts health-care reform is that the battle will rage on, unabated. Republicans will attack the law's weaknesses (and strengths), while Democrats will point to provisions that are popular and take effect immediately, such as the ban on insurers denying coverage for preexisting conditions.
When millions of blue-collar workers were leaning toward John McCain during the 2008 campaign, labor unions moved many of them into Barack Obama’s column by repeatedly hammering one theme: Mr. McCain wanted to tax their health benefits.
The last thing the American middle class needs right now is a big new tax on health insurance plans.
Many working people are now poorer than they were 10 years ago. Middle-class families earned less in inflation-adjusted dollars than they did in 1999.
Health reform appeared on the verge of death many times over the past few weeks, but early Christmas Eve morning the Senate passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on a party-line vote after major concessions were made to secure the votes of conservative Democrats.
Millions of working Americans will pay thousands of dollars more in taxes under the Senate proposal that taxes healthcare benefits to finance reform.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, this excise tax will affect one in five Americans.
Can you tell a Chevy Malibu from a Cadillac Escalade? I'm sure you can, but I've got doubts about the folks in Washington who want to impose a stiff excise tax on what they call "Cadillac Care" health plans to raise revenue and reduce health spending.
Union leaders, among the most passionate backers of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, pressed Democratic senators Thursday to drop a tax on high-value insurance plans to pay for remaking the nation's system.
