House Votes to Repeal Obamacare Tax Once Seen as Key to Health Law (WTF)

WASHINGTON — In the heat of the legislative fight over the Affordable Care Act, Obama administration officials argued that including a steep tax on high-cost health insurance plans would hold down soaring costs by prompting employers to rein in such plans and force employees to spend more of their own money on their care.

On Wednesday, that feature, once considered central to Obamacare, was dealt a blow by an unlikely foe: Democrats.

The House voted almost unanimously to repeal the tax, not only a key cost-containment provision in Barack Obama’s signature health law but also one of the main ways it was supposed to pay for itself.


Still, unions never liked it, nor did business groups or Republicans.

So with neither party showing much concern for the government’s rising tide of red ink, the House moved to permanently block the tax from taking effect — and balloon deficits by nearly $200 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, has suggested that the Senate could follow suit.

“We are re-entering an era of trillion-dollar deficits,” said Maya MacGuineas, the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, “and Congress is considering yet another massive tax cut. It appears there is no end to this madness. The Cadillac tax is one of the most important tools we have to control health care cost growth in the private sector. Repealing it will drive up health care costs while adding more than $1.2 trillion to the debt over the next two decades.”

The tax is supposed to take effect in 2022, after being delayed twice. But the overwhelming vote in the House — 419 to 6, with only three Democrats opposed — increased the likelihood that it never does. Indeed, the debate on the House floor was striking, with one Democrat after another denouncing the provision as if Democrats had nothing to do with its creation.

A recent analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that the Cadillac tax would affect 21 percent of employers that offer health benefits if it takes effect on schedule, unless employers change their health plans, rising to 37 percent in 2030. In 2022, the health plans costing more than $11,200 for an individual worker’s coverage and $30,100 for family coverage would activate the tax, according to the analysis.

Since President Trump took office, the health law has suffered repeated blows. Mr. Trump’s 2017 tax cut eliminated the financial penalty for Americans who decline to get health coverage, and a lawsuit backed by the Trump administration is seeking to declare the health law’s requirement that most people have insurance — and possibly the whole law — unconstitutional.

The administration has instituted regulations to undermine the law, for example expanding the sale of “short term” health insurance policies that do not have to cover pre-existing medical conditions or other health benefits deemed “essential” by the law, such as emergency services and prescription drugs. And the White House has slashed funding to promote Obamacare sign-ups and for “navigators” who are supposed to help consumers enroll.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/house-votes-to-repeal-obamacare-tax-once-seen-as-key-to-health-law/ar-AAEt0TD?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout