Bob Herbert: A Less Than Honest Policy

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/opinion/29herbert.html

There is a middle-class tax time bomb ticking in the Senate’s version of President Obama’s effort to reform health care.

The bill that passed the Senate with such fanfare on Christmas Eve would impose a confiscatory 40 percent excise tax on so-called Cadillac health plans, which are popularly viewed as over-the-top plans held only by the very wealthy. 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.

[Captain Hilts]

1. Our House of Lords is a millionaire's club. They don't care. nt

[WestSeattle2]

2. Well written, very enlightening. n/t

[madrchsod]

3. one term president.

the american middle class can not be allowed to prosper! if i were still working at my last full time i`d be taxed. i had a very nice cadillac plan that cost me a bundle. but it did pay for 95% of medical procedures. my wifes plan picked up the rest.

[KakistocracyHater]

4. they are making civilization too expensive to keep

really fishy & rotten to the core

[cal04]

5. Commentary: Health industry honchos poised to make a bundle

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/health-industry-execs-poised-to-make-a-bundle-2009-12-29

From the boardrooms at the top of the big health care companies, the future looks a lot brighter today than it did just a few months ago.

Sure, the haggling over "healthcare reform" isn't finished just yet. The House and Senate still have to scrum down and reconcile their two bills. But the toughest battles are now over. And Wall Street is already rendering its verdict.

The winners? Most of the healthcare industry -- from "Big Pharma" to the health insurers.

Hardly a surprise: The health industry spends a staggering $393 million lobbying Washington this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, an independent think-tank that tracks money in politics. You read that right: $393 million. It has 3,300 lobbyists.

[ima_sinnic]

7. that is some sick s**t -- but this "market analyst" really slams the bill:

What the Government Isn’t Telling You About the New Healthcare Bill
Martin Hutchinson

<snip>
. . . But the political classes seem to have brought forth a miracle: According to the CBO, the plan will actually increase healthcare premiums for individuals and small business by an average of 10% to 13% in 2016.

The American healthcare system is already the most expensive in the world, at a total cost of nearly 17% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). After the better part of a year of effort by the Obama administration and Congress, one would have hoped that one result of this healthcare-system makeover would have been a measurable reduction in costs. Instead, this bill increases it. It's only a modest increase, to be sure. But it's still an increase.

There are three cross-subsidies in the U.S. healthcare system, which greatly increase its cost. Cross-subsidies increase costs because when Party A makes Party B provide a service without paying for it, the service is generally lousy and the cost high. . . .<snip>

http://moneymorning.com/2009/12/23/senate-healthcare-bill-2/


I'm totally ignorant about this investment and economics-type stuff but somehow ended up as a recipient of this guy's daily e-mail, which I think I've tried to unsubscribe to but, failing that, routinely delete without reading. I laud his lack of opportunism here as I expected him to be touting some "secret" investment strategy in health industry.

[debbierlus]

6. A absolute must read!

Thank you for posting.

[Doctor_J]

8. And, due to the nominal make-up of Congress, the Dems will own the

whole miserable thing. Even though it was written almost entirely by the Repukes.