Healthcare Gone Wild

[Palehorse]

The DOJ has filed suit against two separate healthcare mergers that were being undertaken. Aetna-Humana in one deal, and Anthem-Cigna in the other. Had those transactions been allowed to go forward it would have left 3 giant healthcare companies in this nation, with the third being United Health Care, and substantially reduced competition within the industry as well as created an environment ripe for collusion surrounding premiums and pricing / payouts/ coverages.

In the Anthem-Cigna deal, it has been marked by power struggles since its inception and Cigna beat the DOJ to the punch by filing to terminate the agreement between the two, with Cigna being owed 1.8 billion per the termination clause of the agreement. In addition, Cigna is suing Anthem for an additional 13 billion for damages it says it incurred due to Anthem's hyjinx. . .

The other deal has a similar termination clause imposing a 1 billion debt upon the violating party.

Anyone want to bet that this situation, along with the deregulatory actions being proposed, will drive a 40-50% (or more) premium increase for the average policy holders in FY2018? They'll cry they missed their fiscal goals and lost money due to the rising healthcare costs. Horse Crap!

They're losing money because they're playing games and got caught at it by the DOJ, for one. . . 

http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/14/investing/aetna-humana/index.html

[me]

http://www.atr.org/list-obamacare-tax-hikes

List of Obamacare Tax Hikes
Posted by John Kartch on Thursday, February 23rd, 2017, 6:57 PM PERMALINK

   
It is time to repeal each and every one of Obamacare's tax increases. The 20 Obamacare tax hikes are a $1 trillion net tax increase on the American people. The full list is below:

Individual Mandate Non-Compliance Tax: Anyone not buying "qualifying" health insurance – as defined by the Obama-era Department of Health and Human Services -- must pay an income surtax to the IRS. In 2014, close to 7.5 million households paid this tax. Most make less than $250,000. The Obama administration uses the Orwellian phrase "shared responsibility payment" to describe this tax.   

For tax year 2016, the tax is a minimum of $695 for individuals, while families of four have to pay a minimum of $2,085.



Households w/ 1 Adult



Households w/ 2 Adults

Households w/ 2 Adults & 2 children



2.5% AGI/$695



2.5% AGI/$1390

2.5% AGI/$2085

A recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that repealing this tax would decrease spending by $311 billion over ten years.

Medicine Cabinet Tax on HSAs and FSAs: Since 2011 millions of Americans are no longer able to purchase over-the-counter medicines using pre-tax Flexible Spending Accounts or Health Savings Accounts dollars. Examples include cold, cough, and flu medicine, menstrual cramp relief medication, allergy medicines, and dozens of other common medicine cabinet health items. This tax costs FSA and HSA users $6.7 billion over ten years.

Flexible Spending Account Tax: The 30 - 35 million Americans who use a pre-tax Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family's basic medical needs face an Obamacare-imposed cap of $2,500. This tax will hit Americans $32 billion over the next ten years.

Before Obamacare, the accounts were unlimited under federal law, though employers were allowed to set a cap. Now, parents looking to sock away extra money to pay for braces find themselves quickly hitting this new cap, meaning they have to pony up some or all of the cost with after-tax dollars. Needless to say, this tax especially impacts middle class families.

There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap is particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children.  Families with special needs children often use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at special needs schools can run thousands of dollars per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. This Obamacare tax increase limits the options available to these families.

Chronic Care Tax: This income tax increase directly targets middle class Americans with high medical bills. The tax hits 10 million households every year. Before Obamacare, Americans facing high medical expenses were allowed an income tax deduction to the extent that those expenses exceeded 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). Obamacare now imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. Therefore, Obamacare not only makes it more difficult to claim this deduction, it widens the net of taxable income. This income tax increase will cost Americans $40 billion over the next ten years.

According to the IRS, approximately 10 million families took advantage of this tax deduction each year before Obamacare. Almost all were middle class: The average taxpayer claiming this deduction earned just over $53,000 annually in 2010. ATR estimates that the average income tax increase for the average family claiming this tax benefit is about $200 - $400 per year.

HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike: This provision increases the tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent.

Ten Percent Excise Tax on Indoor Tanning: The Obamacare 10 percent tanning tax has wiped out an estimated 10,000 tanning salons, many owned by women. This $800 million Obamacare tax increase was the first to go into effect (July 2010). This petty, burdensome, nanny-state tax affects both the business owner and the end user. Industry estimates show that 30 million Americans visit an indoor tanning facility in a given year, and over 50 percent of salon owners are women. There is no exception granted for those making less than $250,000 meaning it is yet another tax that violates Obama's "firm pledge" not to raise "any form" of tax on Americans making less than this amount.

"Cadillac Tax" -- Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans: In 2020, a new 40 percent excise tax on employer provided health insurance plans is scheduled to kick in, on plans exceeding $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. According to research by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Cadillac tax will hit 26 percent of employer provided plans by 2020 and 42 percent of employer provided plans by 2028. Over time, this will decrease care and increase costs for millions of American families across the country.

Health Insurance Tax: In addition to mandating the purchase of health insurance through the individual mandate tax, Obamacare directly increases the cost of insurance through the health insurance tax. The tax is projected to cost taxpayers – including those in the middle class – $130 billion over the next decade.

The total revenue this tax collects is set annually by Treasury and is then divided amongst insurers relative to the premiums they collect each year. While it is directly levied on the industry, the costs of the health insurance tax are inevitably passed on to small businesses that provide healthcare to their employees, middle class families through higher premiums, seniors who purchase Medicare advantage coverage, and the poor who rely on Medicaid managed care.

According to the American Action Forum, the Obamacare health insurance tax will increase premiums by up to $5,000 over a decade and will directly impact 1.7 million small businesses, 11 million households that purchase through the individual insurance market and 23 million households covered through their jobs. The tax is also economically destructive – the National Federation for Independent Businesses estimates the tax could cost up to 286,000 in new jobs and cost small businesses $33 billion in lost sales by 2023.

Employer Mandate Tax: This provision forces employers to pay a $2,000 tax per full time employee if they do not offer "qualifying" – as defined by the government -- health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Employer Mandate Tax raises taxes on businesses by $166.9 billion over the ten years.

Surtax on Investment Income: Obamacare created a new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 for singles). This created a new top capital gains tax rate of 23.8% and increased taxes by $222.8 billion over ten years.

The capital gains tax hits income that has already been subjected to individual income taxes and is then reinvested in assets that spur new jobs, higher wages, and increased economic growth. Much of the "gains" associated with the capital gains tax is due to inflation and studies have shown that even supposedly modest increases in the capital gains tax have strong negative economic effects.

Payroll Tax Hike: Obamacare imposes an additional 0.9 percent payroll tax on individuals making $200,000 or couples making more than $250,000. This tax increase costs Americans $123 billion over ten years.

Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers: This law imposes a new 2.3% excise tax on all sales of medical devices. The tax applies even if the company has no profits in a given year. The tax was recently paused for tax years 2016 and 2017. It will cost Americans $20 billion by 2025.

Tax on Prescription Medicine: Obamacare imposed a tax on the producers of prescription medicine based on relative share of sales. This is a $29.6 billion tax hike over the next ten years.

Codification of the "economic substance doctrine": This provision allows the IRS to disallow completely legal tax deductions and other legal tax-minimizing plans just because the IRS deems that the action lacks "substance" and is merely intended to reduce taxes owed. This costs taxpayers $5.8 billion over ten years.

Elimination of Deduction for Retiree Prescription Drug Coverage: The elimination of this deduction is a $1.8 billion tax hike over ten years.

$500,000 Annual Executive Compensation Limit for Health Insurance Executives: This deduction limitation is a $600 million tax hike over ten years.



Read more: http://www.atr.org/list-obamacare-tax-hikes#ixzz4ZaF304lZ
Follow us: @taxreformer on Twitter

[Exterminator]

List of Obamacare Tax Hikes

Clearly yet another thing you couldn't be bothered to actually fact check.  Why do you care any way?  You don't pay taxes; you're a parasite.

[me]

Clearly yet another thing you couldn't be bothered to actually fact check.  Why do you care any way?  You don't pay taxes; you're a parasite.

That's just it they are taxes but were disguised by raising costs and sneaky and calling them other things.  It was all in the wording when he said our taxes weren't going to raise, well no, ours won't but taxes on other things and costs will so in the long run it will be we who pay.

[Exterminator]

...so in the long run it will be we who pay.

Not you!

[me]

Not you!

Only due to my age

[Palehorse]

Only due to my age

Maybe not:

A draft of the House Republicans' bill to repeal Obamacare would replace its subsidies with less generous tax credits, increase the amount insurers could charge older Americans and effectively eliminate Medicaid for low-income adults.
These provisions could leave a significant share of the 20 million people who gained coverage under Obamacare without insurance. The proposal would go fully into effect in 2020.
"A substantial number of people could lose coverage because it's no longer affordable," said Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation. . .

So there you go. He will slit the throats of the very people that voted for him, in favor of Korporate Amerika and multi-billion dollar profits. Even in health care. . . 

[Exterminator]

Only due to my age

Well, that and you don't have a pot to piss in.   

[me]

Well, that and you don't have a pot to piss in.   

I have a comfortable HOME, a nice, paid for, car, enough cash to buy things I need and pay my bills, and can get things I see that I want so I'm happy with where I am in life. A comfortable stress free life is more important to me than "things". You really need to quit looking down on people Ex.

[Exterminator]

I have a comfortable HOME, a nice, paid for, car, enough cash to buy things I need and pay my bills, and can get things I see that I want so I'm happy with where I am in life. A comfortable stress free life is more important to me than "things". You really need to quit looking down on people Ex.

That's not it at all...there will always be people who are smarter, richer, better looking, etc. than the next guy.  I see things like infrastructure and education and public safety and health care as things that are beneficial to society and I don't mind paying for them one bit...and be sure, I actually am paying for them.  Forgive me if it gripes my ass to have to listen to the people who aren't paying for those things bitch about how much they cost.

[The Troll]

That's not it at all...there will always be people who are smarter, richer, better looking, etc. than the next guy.  I see things like infrastructure and education and public safety and health care as things that are beneficial to society and I don't mind paying for them one bit...and be sure, I actually am paying for them.  Forgive me if it gripes my ass to have to listen to the people who aren't paying for those things bitch about how much they cost.

  Ex, she lived off of union health insurance most of her life and now she has got medicare and the union is most likely paying for her supplemental insurance.     Like she really give a damn. 

[Locutus]

I wonder if she supports health savings accounts.  Do you 'me' or do you not support them?

There's a reason for my asking and I'd like to hear the same from Hank if he chooses to opine. 

[me]

That's not it at all...there will always be people who are smarter, richer, better looking, etc. than the next guy.  I see things like infrastructure and education and public safety and health care as things that are beneficial to society and I don't mind paying for them one bit...and be sure, I actually am paying for them.  Forgive me if it gripes my ass to have to listen to the people who aren't paying for those things bitch about how much they cost.

What you don't seem to understand is I did pay for those things when I was working just like you are now.

[me]

I wonder if she supports health savings accounts.  Do you 'me' or do you not support them?

There's a reason for my asking and I'd like to hear the same from Hank if he chooses to opine.

I'm rather iffy on that one just like I wasn't for those 401k's. If the government would keep their hands out of them, tax wise, and people would actually pay into them, yes, I think that would be good coupled with insurance. People with minimum wage jobs wouldn't be able to save enough into a health savings account to pay for major health problems if they happen to have them in their later years or if they didn't start saving early enough.

[me]

  Ex, she lived off of union health insurance most of her life and now she has got medicare and the union is most likely paying for her supplemental insurance.     Like she really give a damn. 

I pay for my own supplemental insurance. The insurance the Ironworkers wasn't set up like the union you were in unfortunately. Even the Ironworkers had to continue paying union dues after retirement to keep the insurance in force. It was a reduced rate but they still had to pay.