The Senate health care bill includes a well-known “employer mandate” provision that would require employers to offer “qualified” health plan and pay 60% of the premium, or pay an annual tax penalty of $750 per full-time employee. What is less well-known is that the provision would also tax companies even …
This week the Commonwealth Fund released a report purporting to explain, as the title says, “Why Health Reform Will Bend the Cost Curve.” It is an exercise in pure, unsubstantiated speculation. They resurrect the long-discredited claim that the bill passed by the House and a somewhat similar but different bill …
The new House bill, H.R. 3962, builds on its predecessor from July in increasing the financial burden on low-income and moderate-income Americans. The Individual Mandate. Like the earlier version, this bill requires the uninsured to pay an extra income tax — 2.5% of adjusted gross income above the filing threshold, …
Proponents of the health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress claim that the cost of insuring the uninsured will be paid for by taxes on the rich, and by employers, who will be required to shoulder “responsibility” for their employee’s health insurance. The reality is that these provisions …
The Senate Finance Committee’s proposed version of the “pay or play” employer mandate reportedly calls for employers who do not sponsor health insurance to pay a “free rider” tax equal to the subsidies their low-income employees would receive to buy insurance in a proposed national health insurance exchange. Yesterday, health …
Activists on both sides of the issue are raising concerns about whether the proposed government-run “public plan” and the private but government-approved plans in the proposed National Health Insurance Exchange will be required, permitted, or prohibited from covering abortions. This is a critical issue, but in the course of this …
The House health care reform bill would establish a new entity called the Health Choices Administration, headed by a presidential appointee to be called the Health Choices Commissioner. Sounds wonderful, right? A government official whose only job is to make sure you have health care choices, right? No. If you …
