Workers unlikely to see relief from delay of health plan tax

In a recent Bloomberg column, Peter Orszag, former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Obama, said that the elimination of the Cadillac Tax would represent a significant setback to the PPACA.

“The health insurance tax drives up the cost of coverage”, said Clare Krusing, a spokeswoman for health insurance lobby America’s Health Insurance Plans, in an e-mail.

Senator Heinrich joined U.S. Senator Dean Heller (R-Nev.) in leading the bipartisan effort to eliminate the Cadillac Tax. That’s a narrative that many supporters of Obamacare fear, but it doesn’t appear to bother many Democrats on the left, who, bolstered by strident opposition to the Cadillac Tax from unions, say they are merely trying to prevent employers from cutting generous benefits that help working people.

Some of my colleagues are blasting the Republican leadership for delaying three of ObamaCare’s taxes as part of the $1.14 trillion end-of-the-year spending bill scheduled for a House vote on Friday.

There’s a silver lining to that sobering statistic: the last-minute amendment to the federal spending bill allows companies to deduct the amount of excise tax paid on their federal income tax returns. Negotiations also rolled back a tax on health insurers for one year.

While opponents argue it may cause workers’ out-of-pocket health costs to rise and undermine employer-sponsored insurance in general, he said, proponents of the tax see it as a key instrument for moderating health care costs. Implemented in 2013, that tax will be suspended throughout 2016 and 2017 and will go into effect again in 2018 if Congress doesn’t reauthorize the suspension.

Heinrich. “The landmark reforms in the Affordable Care Act have given thousands of New Mexicans access to quality, affordable health care for the first time in their lives”.

A $650 billion tax package that would renew for the next 10 years various tax breaks that have ended or are about to expire (Fram, AP/Sacramento Bee, 12/16). “Even if they permanently repealed the device tax, it probably wouldn’t significantly change things”.

The medical device tax was originally created to raise $29 billion over a decade to help pay for Affordable Care Act. Using the Joint Committee on Taxation’s figure for the Cadillac tax produces a higher total: $257 billion. Lawmakers want to suspend two Affordable Care Act taxes, starting with the collection of a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices, for two years. “It gives companies two more years to prepare for the tax if it does come on line in 2020”, he says, although he’s holding out hope that it will have been repealed by then. An American Health Policy Institute study in 2014 found that 38 percent of large employers would be affected by the tax, which was opposed by the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers and other groups from the beginning. With no tax in 2017, the pass-along charge will disappear.

And the bill, which would avert a US government shutdown, would make permanent the tax credits for spending on research and development spending, which could aid health-care companies.