“And I can make a firm pledge: under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase — not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital-gains taxes, not any of your taxes. My opponent can’t make that pledge, and here’s why: For the first time in American history, he wants to tax your health benefits. Apparently, Senator McCain doesn’t think it’s enough that your health premiums have doubled, he thinks you should have to pay taxes on them too.” [emphasis added]
AND
“[Taxing your health care benefits] is so radical, so out of touch with what you’re facing, and so out of line with our basic values.”
President Barack Obama signaled to House Democratic leaders Wednesday that they'll have to drop their opposition to taxing high-end health insurance plans to pay for health coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. [emphasis added]
So who actually pays the 40% (!) “Cadillac health insurance” tax?
"If people think these Cadillac plans are primarily covering wealthy executives, they are mistaken," says Tom Billet, a senior health-benefits consultant for Watson Wyatt, a corporate consulting firm. In reality, many more of the most expensive employer-based health-insurance plans cover people like the families of New Hampshire state employees who, according to the Boston Globe, have policies worth $20,400 per year. (The employee contribution is $60 per month.)
And if you live in Massachusetts…
Massachusetts has the most expensive family health insurance premiums in the country, according to a new analysis that highlights the state’s challenge in trying to rein in medical costs after passage of a landmark 2006 law that mandated coverage for nearly everyone.
The report by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit health care foundation, showed that the average family premium for plans offered by employers in Massachusetts was $13,788 in 2008, 40 percent higher than in 2003. Over the same period, premiums nationwide rose an average of 33 percent.
Since we have the most expensive health insurance plans, guess who’s going to pay a disproportionate amount of this 40% tax? That would be…YOU.
President Obama promised he wouldn’t do this. He declared the notion of taxing your health insurance “radical” and a violation of America’s “basic values.” But he’s going to violate us—and our values—anyway. He just needs 60 loyal, tax-hiking US Senators to do it.
Who is his 60th vote? Martha Coakley.
Stop this insanity. Vote Scott Brown.
UPDATE! Thanks to a tip from a commenter below, we know who else will pay if Martha Coakley passes ObamaCare: Married people.
The built-in "marriage penalty" in both House and Senate healthcare bills has received scant attention. But for scores of low-income and middle-income couples, it could mean a hike of $2,000 or more in annual insurance premiums the moment they say "I do."
C'mon, liberals: Don't married people suffer enough already?
"The truth is something [Warren] probably prefers not to confront. Harvard doesn’t come calling just because you’re a smart lawyer and a terrific teacher — not with Warren’s modest, Oklahoma upbringing and non-Ivy League education. She is not your typical Harvard professor. At a certain point, when the law school was under pressure to promote diversity, she represented a three-fer: a great lawyer with a national profile, a woman, and a minority, at least by virtue of family lore. "
-- Joan Vennochi
