All Tax, No Benefit
1. 40% excise tax on health coverage in excess of $8,500 (individuals) / $23,000 (families). Amounts are indexed for inflation by CPI-U + 1% – begins in 2013 – $149 B tax increase
2. Additional 0.5% Medicare (Hospital Insurance) tax on wages in excess of $200,000 ($250,000 for joint filers) – begins in 2013 – $54 B tax increase
3. Impose annual fee on manufacturers and importers of branded drugs – begins in 2010 – $22 B tax increase
4. Impose annual fee on manufacturers and importers of certain medical devices – begins in 2010 – $19 B tax increase
5. Impose annual fee on manufacturers and importers of certain medical devices – begins in 2010 – $60 B tax increase
6. Cut in half (to $500K) the amount of an executive’s compensation that a health plan can deduct from its corporate income taxes – begins in 2013 – $600 million tax increase
7. Impose 5% excise tax on cosmetic surgery and similar procedures – begins for surgery in 2010 – $6 B tax increase!
Even NPR was calling that last item the “Bo-Tax”. I rather like “Tax for the Mammaries”, myself.
And they are already moving to eliminate benefits, witness the new recommendations for mammograms that a government panel suddenly announced. Bet your life that things like that will not be “recommendations” after the government takes over health care. They will be decrees.
And we will be collectively screwed.
What I see happening if this beast of a bill escapes the Senate:
Taxes will explode exponentially – because costs will be vastly greater than what they are currently predicting.
Insurance costs will not decrease. In fact, the price for insurance will climb rapidly.
The health care system will be unable to absorb the additional load and quality will decrease.
Benefits will be steadily taken away as costs spiral out of control.
The bureaucracy will multiply faster than the swine flu and will be even more pernicious.
The government will be into every detail of every, single American’s lives.
Abortion will be funded by the tax dollars of Americans, whether those taxpayers agree with abortion or not.
Millions of early retirees who currently have bridge health insurance (until they can obtain Medicare) through their employers will lose that and they will be thrown onto the “public plan”.
Unemployment will become permanently high, probably above the 10% level, as it is in many European countries today.
And many more bad things.
Do you really want Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi running your health care?
Better start calling, better start writing. This thing has to be stopped.
By Mockingbird, November 19, 2009 @ 4:23 pm
I want Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi running from the mob behind them with pitchforks, torches and shotguns.
And a rabid bobcat we call Foamy.
By Maggie, November 19, 2009 @ 5:44 pm
Regarding the current mammogram controversy:
As I had thought, after hearing a no-name lib griping they are Bush appointees who put forth the new report, Obama’s people are now back-peddling … most notably the HHS Secretary and to listen to Harry Reid gasp over it. This is yet another orchestrated ‘crisis’ by thie administration and the democrats (well, maybe giving too much credit in the orchestrated department) but they are now using it to deflect responsibility and blame to the Bush Administration and will use it as a, “See, we’re on this stuff. No worries when we take over control of your healthcare.”.
Mark my words, this controversy will now be played as the standard “Bush’s Fault”, so how can you trust republican opposition to nationalized healthcare when they want women to die from undetected breast cancer? Trust us. We care about you.
Fact is, this panel is not the darned SCOTUS, and a new administration can dump everyone and seat their own people. But they didn’t. Heck, Turbo Tax Tim hasn’t even filled the desks at his office nearly a year in.
This administration has no real idea what they are doing except pushing some abstract agenda via one massive bag of BS bill after another.
By Maggie, November 20, 2009 @ 12:45 am
Gaius -
The other shoe has dropped in the pre-rationing:
http://tinyurl.com/yznodk9
Where in hell are the women’s groups on this stuff?
By ropelight, November 20, 2009 @ 8:03 am
Maggie said, “This administration has no real idea what they are doing except pushing some abstract agenda via one massive bag of BS bill after another.”
Take a second look Maggie, there’s method to the madness. Their “abstract agenda” isn’t abstract at all, it’s as real as a heart attack, and that “massive bag of BS bills,” well that’s the bricks and mortar they’re using to build an institutional Berlin Wall, right here in River City.
You don’t see it yet because it’s not something you would normally contemplate. But if you’re open to the possibility that others may have very different goals, then you might notice how they go about implementing them.
I’ll give you a hint: The questions are more important than the answers.
By Maggie, November 20, 2009 @ 3:08 pm
ropelight -
By “abstract” I meant the ideology of Marxism that has failed every time it’s been imposed on a society.
This admin. and the dem Congress believe they can just do it better.
The Marxist agenda is abstract in that it goes against everything humans feel and think on a primal level.
On, perhaps, a vague or weak analogy Marxism is like the radio broadcast of War Of The Worlds. All it really ever produced when tried was a lot of panic, trouble, and even death while the instigator(s) pretty much got away with his direct hand in it, and managed to make a name for himself as a result. (See: Castro, Che, Mao, Stalin, Hitler …)
As to not knowing what they’re doing, they’re like a bunch of arrogant kids who have hot-wired a car (the nation) and thinks they can jump it onto the race track crashing into all the other cars in order to get to the finish line. They will leave nothing behind but complete wreckage.
One can only pray they hit the wall hard … and SOON.
Sorry, I shouldn’t be so vague when commenting.
I perfectly understand your follow-up to my comment, ropelight. Thanks.
Maggie
By ropelight, November 20, 2009 @ 3:37 pm
Maggie, Sorry to put a bee in your bonnet, they hot-wired the car in order to run it into the wall.
By Maggie, November 20, 2009 @ 4:58 pm
ropelight -
LOL! Yup!
A means to an end.