Senate health bill’s huge tax increases
December 3rd, 2009 | by Brian Schwartz |Writes Cato’s Michael Cannon:
Amid double-digit unemployment, a record $1.6 trillion federal deficit and a national debt projected to double in 10 years, U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., voted to bring to the floor of the Senate a health care overhaul with so many job-killing tax increases that it’s hard to fit them all into one column.
There are explicit taxes increases, taxes on sick people, medical devices, prescription drugs, expensive insurance plans [lowering income tax rates and reducing tax exemption for employer-sponsored insurance would be better], and increased Medicare taxes. There are hidden taxes, e.g.:
Another hidden tax comes in the form of price controls that would increase premiums for young adults in order to subsidize their parents, even though the parents typically have higher incomes. The same price controls would increase premiums for people with healthy lifestyles to subsidize those who (for example) overeat or consume alcohol to excess. …
The bill’s largest hidden tax, however, is a mandate that would force all Americans to purchase health insurance, whether they want it or not.
… When the government forces you to pay $10,000 to the IRS, and then gives that money to a private insurance company — as this legislation would do — we rightly call that a tax.
If instead the government forced you or your employer to pay $10,000 directly to a private insurance company — as this legislation also would do — the outcome would be the same. That makes the mandate a tax, even though that $10,000 never passes through the federal Treasury.
For details on all the taxes, read the whole article: Senate health reform plan prescribes heavy tax dose.
tags: community rating, HR 3590, mandatory insurance, taxes
