A reader writes:
David, how are you feeling about what the Democrats are doing in Washington? Are you looking forward to being forced to provide insurance to your employees and being penalized if it doesn't measure up? How about having your taxes raised to pay for healthcare? It is the middle class who will be taxed after all, not the rich as Obama promised.
This statement shows some of the confusion of what is actually part of the health reform, and sounds like a parrot of the misleading Republican/Tea Party line.
This New York Times run down of the Senate and House plans is helpful. It gets pretty complicated, but essentially business between 25 and 50 employees that already provide insurance wouldn't really be affected, as far as I can tell. In fact they should benefit through more options in the insurance exchanges. Also, employed individuals who struggle to pay high premiums would get some federal assistance. And if the public option passes, which it won't, that could drive down cost through competition.
We'll see. You can't cover all or most Americans without somebody paying for it. I'd rather run a business in a world where employees had insurance, that insurance had certain guarantees, and people who couldn't afford it got some help.
Can't be any worse than the 20 percent a year increases our company has seen in premium and copays over the last four years!
And, I'd like to know how I, or the middle class, is going to be taxed to pay for health care? In fact the House bill has the "millionaires" tax, and the Senate has the Cadillac plan tax. This will affect employers who offer very rich health plans, which doesn't include most small businesses. I suppose this tax could be passed along to the employees, or they could be absorbed by the employers or the health insurance companies. But it certainly won't affect most people.
We'll see.
FYI - for the vast majority of Americans in the middle class, our payroll taxes have GONE DOWN under Obama.
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9 comments:
from http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/17/cadillac-tax-in-health-plan-would-hit-middle-class-hard/
"The confusion surrounding the tax comes from its complexity and the luxury car it is named for. When President Obama first raised the idea of taxing insurance companies this summer, he framed it as one way to get Wall Street executives to pay their fair share. Obama told PBS' Jim Lehrer he wanted to target "super, gold-plated Cadillac plans." Days later, Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod told The New York Times the administration wanted to tax benefits "like the ones that the executives at Goldman Sachs have, the $40,000 policies."
At the time, Obama said he did not want the tax to hit middle-class families, but when the bill emerged from the Senate Finance Committee in September, it proposed charging insurance companies and a 40 percent excise tax for high-dollar -- but not exactly gold-plated -- plans. The bill now calls for the tax to apply to plans exceeding $8,500 for individuals and $23,000 for families, for the cost of combining health savings accounts, medical, prescription drugs, dental, vision, etc. The tax is charged to insurance companies, but it is widely assumed they would pass it on to employers."
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Since you are so worried about people being able to afford insurance, I can only assume you will pick up the difference for your employees?
lol... Yeah, I always thought it was weird that the tea party crowd just all of a sudden started protesting lower taxes! Could it be something else about the new President that doesn't sit well with them???
So why blame the President because the excessively rich shirk their responsibility to pay a fair share of taxes?
As I read these bizarre comments it brings to mind the stories of folks who stand idly by and watch an assualt or worse take place.
Why are we enraged with the President, this president or congress when we watch as the wealthiest 5% of our population thumb their nose.
These are the same folks who wanted to blast a local commissioner for being a day late on taxes but we don't care that those people boast about short shrifting the American public year after year.
Turn your anger to the right people folks. No one forced tax advantage on them. The wealthy folks asked for those breaks. They lobbied and bribed for those breaks.
Get real! The top 1% pay 40% of the income taxes. That is a stone cold fact from the IRS. Wake up idiots! This country penalizes success. That is tyranny! Wait, facts don't mean anything to you does it? You guys just want evryone else to live in poverty. Grow up! If you don't like people getting wealthy, then move to a country where they redistribute the wealth, otherwise, suck it up and move on, or figure out a way you can make alot of money and get taxed to death.
hahahaha You liberals and your veiled racism remarks. Are Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi black? They are the ones bringing about the change in Health care, not Obama, though he is involved.
I think you don't like the fact that Americans are waking up to your socialist ideas, and they don't like it. That is why you call names and try to belittle the honest hardworking Americans who don't want your socialism. I can't wait until the conservatives take this country back and you will be left to cry about how the government owes you something you didn't work for.
I give up trying to have any debate on here. The delay is maddening. Since you refuse to let us post without your censorship, which is your right, I refuse to visit this blog, which is my right.
There is really no debate. Read the posts. 95% of them are "if you don't see it my way I will hang some label on your ideas and dismiss it as senseless." Even Mr. Ray can't seem to articulate a respect for any other idea than his own.
I just don't understand why those "Raybirds" who have all the facts and the best ideas don't just go fix it.
Come on Ray. Stop saying and go do something about it. Don't see you at City Hall. Haven't heard you converse with your local legislators. Don't see you running for governor. All I see is you telling everyone who might think differently what an idiot they are and that they should listen to you and do it your way.
Why don't YOU do it your way and let us all see how it works? We'll watch you. Then you can sell your plan on DVD and make another $billion. Stop giving it away here to all the defined (by you) idiots.
But then again, what expert would invest his time in arguing with people he is convinced are idiots?
What I find wingnutty is that the lamestream media is letting Prez BO get away with secret health care meetings. First, Lousiana is given a back door deal then Nebraska & now unions. 87% of Americans are NOT union workers.
When is the media going to hold him accountable when he said 7 times he would run a transparent government.
I don't have to run for anything. I just have to make sure that the right people get voted in. i.e. convincing others that socialism is wrong. I don't have to prove my facts and figures because what I say has already been tried and was very successful. The problem here is that just because we are America somehowwe think that we can take something that is a complete failure and make it work. History has proven time and time again that the only places where TRUE poverty takes place is those countries that do not have a free market. Free market solutions have been, and always will be the best solution when it comes to the economy. If we can elect true conservatives then we can have a nation try and get back to what works. These ideas are not mine. They are ideas that have been passed throughout history, the problem is alot of people ignore history. Much like the people who get mad at me for calling it like it is. I find that when confronted with facts, libs seem to get mad and upset about why federal government was meant to be small and limited in its's power.
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