Word: taxing
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Year-end lists and new year's resolutions are as easy to mock as they are to make. But in uncertain times, reviewing and previewing are serious business. They let us imagine we can impose some order on the fresh calendar page - marking holidays, graduations, movie premieres, tax-free back-to-school shopping week - even as we wait to see which days, now anonymous or devoted to watching groundhogs, will be raised from obscurity to eternity in the history books...
...While there are many differences between the two bills, including abortion funding restrictions and Medicaid expansions, the issue now emerging as the major flash point is the Senate's proposed 40% excise tax on high-cost insurance policies: those individual policies costing upwards of $8,500 and family policies costing more than $23,000 that are being referred to in Washington these days as "Cadillac plans." At this point, about three-quarters of the House Democratic caucus has signed a letter sponsored by Connecticut Congressman Joe Courtney expressing opposition to the tax. (See the five differences that need...
...Opponents argue that the people who are covered by those policies are, in many instances, far from wealthy. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that about 1 in 5 workers would be affected by the tax in 2016. And among unionized workers, particularly in states where health costs are higher than average, the percentages are even higher. For instance, the Connecticut Education Association, which delivered petitions to its congressional delegation that were signed by 10,000 of the state's teachers, estimates that the tax would hit 40% of its members the first year alone. And under the provision's indexing...
...Courtney contends that swallowing this tax would be even more difficult for many House Democrats than abandoning the public option, which would have provided a new government-run alternative for covering the uninsured. That is because it would require tens of millions of Americans to give up a benefit they now enjoy - tax-free treatment of their health benefits...
...However, Obama has already indicated that he favors the tax. Not only would it raise an estimated $149 billion over 10 years but many health economists argue that it also could put a brake on rising health care costs. According to one aide to the House Democratic leadership, Obama made a "strong case" for the tax in a meeting last week with congressional leaders, and "got an equally strong push back from the House...