It’s Fix the Tax Code Friday! This week, health care reform is in the news again, this time with a focus on the proposed excise tax for high-premium insurance plans.
The latest proposal for health care reform includes a controversial excise tax for high-premium insurance plans which exceed certain thresholds. Much of the concern, especially as put forth by union groups, focuses on the idea is that the thresholds are too low.
The proposed threshold are $8,000 for a single person or $21,000 for a family per year. For workers in high-risk jobs and retirees over the age of 55, they are $9,850 for a single person and $26,000 for a family per year.
So today’s Fix the Tax Code Friday question is:
After you cast your vote, sound off below!
In case you’ve been spending a few too many late nights awake, you can read the current Senate Finance Proposal here. It will download as a pdf.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
What is this all about anyway? All my friends think I’m a Socialist, but I still don’t understand this “egalitarian” approach? Why can’t someone have a gilt-edge health insurance plan, if they or their employer can afford it and are willing to pay for it?
I can understand slapping excise taxes and such on genuine luxury items. If you can afford a $100,000 car, you can damwell afford a hefty tax on it too. But just because 45 million Americans can’t afford it doesn’t mean that health insurance is a luxury good, does it?
45 million people without health insurance is a joke. Most 20 something healthy adults could buy health insurance for about the same price as the monthly payment on their cell phones, they just choose not to. We have the best health care in the world, it just needs some tweaking. To give the government control over health care would be a disaster, I challenge anyone to name one thing, and I do mean one thing that they do right. There is no oversight and no accountability. Look at what they have done to social-security and medicaid. They are both going down the tubes from theft and fraud. Get with it people, the government doesn’t represent us, they dictate.
The only reason health care is a problem is because it is mixed into the tax code. Imagine if unions & corporations could not deduct the cost of their health care plans as expenses. They would start paying their fair share of income taxes and their employees could get truly portable health care insurance since the employer wouldn’t have control over it. Each individual could pick the plan they want and can afford – instead of companies picking for their employees. People could have better medical privacy, because the employers would not have an interest in keeping costs down. People would not have to worry about changing jobs, since they own their insurance instead of their boss owning the insurance.
Why? Why? Why? does everyone insist on turning a healthcare reform debate into insurance BS? WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!! Insurance companies have one purpose…. MAKE MONEY FOR THEIR STOCKHOLDERS!!!! The way they do this is by skimming money from the system. Lobbyists have spent 1/3 of the cost of the current (10 year) house bill in the last 10 months. On what? Buying votes and spewing BS to try and get people to back business as usual WHY IS HEALTHCARE NOT CONSIDERED A RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE? Someone wrote we have the best healthcare in the world… Then why are there hundreds of people DYING every day because of lack of insurance? HOW IS THAT THE BEST HEALTHCARE?????? What you should say is it’s the best money can buy and if you are poor, then just die quickly.
Since this is a tax blog, I would think someone would want to comment on the fact that the IRS will be put in charge of healthcare under any of the Obama plans. Yes, the IRS will have direct access to everyone’s bank account, in order to directly debit you for your consumption of healthcare, your premiums, the extra you have to pay if you have a decent plan (referred to these days as a ‘cadillac’ plan), and the additional taxes you will pay for the coverage of the uninsured.
Boots, this isn’t quite right. IRS will not be debiting bank accounts to pay for health care insurance (those will be paid to the insurers as usual) nor for costs of health care (those will be paid to your health care providers). Additionally, the majority of any excise taxes to be paid for Cadillac premiums are slated to be paid by the employers, not employees. Surtaxes paid by high income taxpayers would be paid along with your regular taxes, in April, not direct debited by the IRS.
I believe what you’re referring to are provisions in various versions of the bills which require certain disclosures (name, address, EIN or SSN) which are, quite frankly, already available to IRS. The idea is to allow the IRS to compare income tax returns and health coverage filings. While I agree that there are potential privacy concerns, the IRS will not be attacking bank accounts but rather withholding refunds, etc., for those who are not otherwise in compliance.
this question is for David. If we don’t have the best health care in the world, then who does? I can’t wait for this answer.