Details Emerge On White House-Labor Health Care Agreement

[ProSense]

Details Emerge On White House-Labor Health Care Agreement

Brian Beutler

The Obama administration and organized labor have reached a tentative agreement on the so-called Cadillac tax on high end health insurance plans, signaling that Democrats may soon be able to resolve their differences over how to finance health care reform.

Unions had opposed the measure, which, as originally designed, would have imposed a 40 percent excise tax on insurance policies that cost more than $23,000 for families, and $8,500 for individuals, indexed just above inflation.

Under the terms of the proposed deal, the threshold for families would be raised to $24,000, and would exempt certain benefits like vision and dental, according to a Democratic source.

Collectively bargained plans would be exempted until 2017, to provide workers with a real opportunity to renegotiate their benefits packages, which were designed under current law and excluded from taxation.

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[TransitJohn]

1. This part here is the good news.

Collectively bargained plans would be exempted until 2017, to provide workers with a real opportunity to renegotiate their benefits packages, which were designed under current law and excluded from taxation.

Actually glad to see that.

[Hello_Kitty]

4. That is good. eom

[NJmaverick]

2. This seems like a reasonable compromise

[Hello_Kitty]

3. I was wondering about the vision and dental thing

Were they planning to "bend the cost curve" by forcing employers to drop dental and vision? Because that's why a lot of plans are expensive.

[ProSense]

8. A lot of plans provide dental and vision and aren't expensive. n/t

[Hello_Kitty]

11. And yet, they're compromising in the Senate plan to exempt dental and vision from the excise tax.

Odd, that.

[GOTV]

5. Doesn't he have to pass this by Sen. Lieberman? Or does Lieberman only count ...

... when they want to kill a feature the WH didn't want in the first place?

I mean really, why is the WH house suddenly empowered to make deals on the content of HCR.

[Clio the Leo]

7. Lieberman is in favor of the tax.....

... but said any change to it would not be a deal breaker to him. So no, he doesn't need to pass this by Lieberman. But thank you for attempting to over-simplify the issue.

http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2009/12/22/news/a1-nehealthreact.txt

[flpoljunkie]

9. What doesn't Lieberman like, then? National health exchanges?

Health insurance companies would, no doubt, prefer the weaker state exchanges in the Senate bill.

Obama is said to prefer the House's national exchanges. Let's hope he sticks to his guns and doesn't let Lieberman call the shots.

[Clio the Leo]

6. I knew last week when I heard labor was going to the WH.....

..... things were going to get fixed. Kinda hard to say no to Obama AND the AFL-CIO (etc.)

[Clio the Leo]

10. Related: SEIU sending 300 volunteers to Mass for GOTV....

http://twitter.com/marcambinder/status/7762348331

[VMI Dem]

12. Wonder if Lieberman will ok this?

Someone better ask him.

[SpartanDem]

13. More on the deal

Labor leaders have scheduled a conference call for 4:30 p.m. Thursday. Here are the outlines of what they will announce, according to a source familiar with the agreement:

-- The threshold will be raised to $24,000 for family plans, $8,900 for individuals

-- The tax wouldn't kick in until Jan. 1, 2018, for some collective bargaining agreements, and state and local government workers.

-- There would be further increases to the threshold upward for plans with older workers and women, which would benefit unions with a high proportion of female membership.

-- Dental and vision plans would be exempted.

-- The index remains the same as it was under the Senate bill, which is inflation plus one percent.

The deal came together over more than 12 hours of negotiations Wednesday between the key labor leaders and top White House aides, the source said

http://www.politico.com/livepulse/

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

16. Given these parameters....

I can't imagine too many plans would be subject to the tax.

Which begs the question, if the excise tax isn't going to generate sufficient revenue, where's the money going to come from?

[jacksondem]

14. Need help on this

Why should unions get a tax exemption that doesn't apply to everyone else? I work for a living and make way less than 250k but my company has an expensive policy. Why do I have to pay a 40% tax on something that other people are not taxed on? This reminds me of the special treatment that we are giving the corporate greed heads.

[Hello_Kitty]

15. Because they got those plans through collective bargaining.

This tax is essentially changing the terms of a contract. That was one of the arguments against the AIG bonus tax, and opponents of the tax prevailed. I mean, hey, if investment bankers' contracts are sacred then so are union members.