Dem Senator Warns of 'Big, Big Tax' on Middle Class

[mrjarrell]

The Baucus insurance scam bill has a new tax built into that is going to attack the middle class. Even Dem Senator Jay Rockefeller gets that it's going to hurt the middle and lower classes. Yeah, he's thinking of his UMW supporters, but the truth is the truth, in the end. Union members are going to get it in the neck and so are the rest of us.

It's not every day that you hear a Democratic senator charge that a fellow Democrat is proposing to raise taxes on the middle class, but that is what happened on Tuesday when Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., ripped into the health-care bill developed by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mt., the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

The Baucus proposal would impose, starting in 2013, a 35 percent excise tax on insurance companies for "high-cost plans" -- defined as those above $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for family plans.

Health economists believe a tax on high-priced benefits could help slow the growth of health costs by making consumers more sensitive to prices.

The tax contemplated by Baucus is also a big revenue raiser. It is expected to raise $200 billion, money that Baucus is hoping to use to pay for subsidies for the uninsured.

Given how much money this kind of tax can raise, Rockefeller says he understands why it is "tempting."

The West Virginia Democrat worries, however, that a lot of middle class workers, like the coal miners in his state, will end up facing "a big, big tax" under the Baucus bill because they currently enjoy generous employer-provided health care benefits which they receive tax free.

Read the rest at the source.
That excise tax will be passed right along to consumers. Corporations never pay taxes.

[Lucas156]

prices are too high so heres a good idea lets make them higher.......What? Some people just have a couple screws loose don't they?

[mrjarrell]

There seems to be some dissension in the ranks of the committee, too.

Link to Doogie.

Following up on his This Week appearance where he promised to fight on for the public option, Sen. Jay Rockefeller blasted the draft bill produced by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus: “there is no way in its present form that I vote for it unless it changes in the amendment process by vast amounts.”
He’s not alone. Fellow Finance Committee member Ron Wyden is livid too. Expect a rocky mark-up next week. As one top Democrat told me, the fundamental problem is that Democrats “are being asked to support a bipartisan bill that doesn’t have bipartisan support.” The compromise without the cover.
Meanwhile, Republican Olympia Snowe's office just told me that the Senator is not ready to sign on to the Baucus draft. He will introduce it tomorrow without her support. But Snowe intends to keep negotiating and working with Baucus through the mark-up next week.
Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a special caucus on Thursday for Democrats to discuss the Baucus bill. Should be lively.
UPDATE: Wyden Sounds Off on Baucus Plan
As Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee, prepares to discuss his "chairman's mark" Wednesday at 12 noon on Capitol Hill, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, one of the Democrats who sits on the panel, has elaborated on his misgivings with the Baucus plan in an interview with Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus.
Wyden says the legislation would cost lower-income Americans too much and give many people too little choice of insurance plans.
"If the Baucus proposal passes," he said, "They're going to say, 'Huh? Health-care security means I pay a whole lot more than I'm paying today or I get to be exempt from it, or I pay a penalty?' They're not going to say that meets the definition of health-care security.'"

[Fletch]

I like it when they fight amongst themselves.

[jblomenberg16]

I'll admit that I'm not for a new tax...but I'm a little confused as to the definition of the "High cost plan." Is that the summ of the premiums I pay and the company pays collectively for my insurance, is based on the out of pocket limits, etc.?

Reason I ask, is that I have an HSA, which is "low cost" in that the premiums are low, but the deductable and limits are high.