The GOP House blueprint for health reform repeals these taxes. Specifically, the report cites:
- the 3.8 percent bracket in the Medicare payroll and self-employment tax
- the 3.8 percent “net investment income tax” (NIIT) on savings and investment
- the additional 10 percentage point surtax for non-qualified health savings account (HSA) withdrawals
- the “medicine cabinet tax” which denies the use of pre-tax HSA, health reimbursement arrangement (HRA), and flexible spending account (FSA) dollars for the purchase of non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines
- the $2500 cap on medical FSA deferrals
- the “Cadillac plan” tax of 40 percent on high cost health insurance plans
- the “health insurance tax” (HIT)
- the tax penalties associated with the individual and employer mandates
- the medical device excise tax
- the industry tax on pharmaceutical companies
- the “high medical bills tax” which disallows an itemized deduction for medical expenses for millions of middle class families
- a tax on employers helping their retired employees purchase Medicare Part D plans
With time running out for the Obama administration to prove the success of the Affordable Care Act, officials are aggressively targeting a group that could help turn things around: young people.
Federal health officials announced Tuesday they will comb tax records to find 18-34 year-olds who paid the penalty stipulated under President Barack Obama’s health act for not buying health insurance and reach out to them directly with emails to urge them to avoid even higher penalties scheduled for this year. They also plan to heavily advertise the enrollment campaign, including a promotion with trendy ride-sharing service Lyft to offer discounted rides to enrollment events.
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ObamaCare officials are partnering with the IRS to help drive down uninsured rates among young people.
For the first time, the federal tax agency is working with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to reach out directly to taxpayers who paid the required fee last year because they lacked coverage.
About 45 percent of people who paid the fee — or claimed an exemption, like financial hardship — were under 35, according to HHS.
The planned mailings will lay out options for coverage and include details about how to qualify for federal subsidies. HHS will also again partner with the ride-hailing service Lyft, which will offer discounts to customers who attend open enrollment sessions.
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Today, after years of hearings and speeches and debates, the Paul Ryan-led House of Representatives has done something it has not done before: it has released a comprehensive, 37-page proposal to reform nearly every federal health care program, including Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare. No proposal is perfect—and we’ll get to the Ryan plan’s imperfections—but, all in all, we would have a far better health care system with the Ryan plan than we do today.
The first thing to know about the Ryan-led plan — part of a group of proposals called “A Better Way” — is that it’s not a bill written in legislative language. Nor is it a plan that has been endorsed by every House Republican.
Instead, it’s a 37-page white paper which describes, in a fair amount of detail, a kind of “conversation starter” that House GOP leadership hopes to have with its rank-and-file members, and with the public, in order to consolidate support around a more market-based approach to health reform.
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House Speaker Paul Ryan’s policy plan for health care, as expected, leans heavily on market forces, more so than the current system created by Obamacare. The proposal contains a host of previously proposed Republican ideas on health care, many of which are designed to drive people to private insurance markets.
Importantly for conservatives, as part of a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the current law’s mandates for individuals and insurers would disappear under the GOP plan. It would overhaul Medicare by transitioning to a premium support system under which beneficiaries would receive a set amount to pay for coverage. The plan also would alter Medicaid by implementing either per capita caps or block grants, based on a state’s preference.
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Obamacare has invented a dangerous new way to hide federal spending, including more than $100 billion designed to look like tax cuts.
In defiance of standard United States government accounting practices (and the government’s standard definitions of terms), Obamacare labels its direct outlays to insurance companies “tax credits” (not outlays)—even though they don’t actually cut anyone’s taxes. In this way, Obamacare is masking some $104 billion in federal spending over a decade.
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A plan the Clinton campaign unveiled in September would create a refundable tax credit worth as much as $2,500 per individual and $5,000 per family to cover out-of-pocket health-care expenses. Knowing there is a federal credit might give employees incentive to incur additional expenses to exceed the subsidy threshold. That would mean a credit aimed at mitigating the effects of rising health costs for some families could end up exacerbating the problem on a broader scale.
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Another bombshell could soon drop on the Affordable Care Act insurance exchange market, and it might come at a highly vulnerable moment for ObamaCare.
Rosemary Collyer, U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia, is expected to soon issue her ruling in U.S. House of Representatives v. Burwell, a case in which House Republicans claim the Obama administration is illegally funding the ACA’s cost-sharing subsidies without a congressional appropriation.
If, as some legal observers believe is possible or even likely, the George W. Bush-nominated Collyer decides against the administration, it would further rattle insurers who are facing multiple difficulties in the exchange business. UnitedHealth Group announced last week that it was pulling out of most exchanges because of its financial losses. Such a ruling would be a shock, even though it surely would be appealed, and the case could ultimately reach the Supreme Court.
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Here’s some bad news for the insurance industry: Unexpectedly generous corporate subsidies didn’t save companies selling ObamaCare policies from bleeding red ink. The worse news: Those subsidies are set to expire in 2017, meaning that insurers will have to make ends meet without billions in handouts.
Those are among the matters discussed in a study by the Mercatus Center, authored by Brian Blase, Edmund Haislmaier, and Doug Badger. Thestudy, based on detailed data derived from insurer regulatory filings for the 2014 benefit year, finds that companies that sold ObamaCare plans in the individual market lost more than $2.2 billion, despite receiving $6.7 billion (an average of $833 per enrollee) in “reinsurance” subsidies. Those reinsurance payments were 40 percent more generous on a per-enrollee basis than insurers had expected when they set their 2014 premiums.
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The Affordable Care Act’s tax increases are many, two are front and center this month: the individual and employer mandates. They were both supposed to increase coverage, but in reality they’re limiting career opportunities and taking more out of families’ and individuals’ wallets.
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