December 31, 2013
By: Bobby Casey, GWP Managing Director
Get ready for it. Prepare thyself. January 1st is opening day for one of the worst, and sneakiest taxes ever to slither its way into the tax code since inflation itself.
Welcome to one of the many hidden and ubiquitous “taxes” found in Obamacare, so aptly named after its namesake – the Obamessiah.
This “tax”, is not even classified as such by the IRS. No, the IRS calls it a fee. Except it functions exactly like an excise tax on premiums. This “fee” will raise an estimated $8B in 2014 and $101B over the course of the next ten years.
This flat fee is imposed upon all insurance companies according to their respective market share. However, here’s the irony:
- Any entity that self-insures his employees’ healthcare cost is exempt. Considering that 80% of all companies with more than 500 employees and nearly all union-negotiated health plans are self-insured, that is a huge exemption for big corporations.
- Additionally, insurance on government entities are exempt from this fee.
Wait. What? Read that again.
Let’s frame this a different way: Insurance companies are forced to pay a fee on premiums starting January 1st. That fee will clearly be passed on to the ones paying the premiums. However, a large number of bigger companies are exempt from paying this fee making the fee spread primarily across small companies throughout Amerika.
Yet another attack on small businesses by the Obamessiah. The poor suckers who work for and run small businesses are taking it on the chin… again. Yikes.
The mental giants in Washington are telling businesses the fee will be covered by large insurance companies. Meanwhile, the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) claims the fee will be passed on to consumers through higher premiums.
The Joint Tax Committee along with the CBO estimates insurance premiums will rise by ANOTHER 2 – 2.5%. Yet another promise broken by the Obamessiah.
According to all the media hype, the ACA was supposed to expand coverage to those uninsured – which is rather amusing since, in actuality, millions of Americans have now lost coverage leading to yet another exemption. (Read: “Obamacare: Exceptions Leading to Failure”.)
In addition to the expanded coverage, it was also supposed to lower the cost of healthcare – although nearly everyone claims to have seen increases in premiums. And now all Americans are looking at another 2 – 2.5% increase in premiums.
The NFIB (National Federation of Independent Business) research shows that higher insurance costs will lead to a loss of 146,000 to 262,000 jobs over the next 10 years. And 59% of those losses will come from small businesses.
But don’t worry folks….the brain trust in Washington will find new ways to manipulate employment numbers in order to brainwash you into thinking unemployment is actually falling.
In my view, the end result will be another round of small businesses dumping their health insurance coverage for employees out of dire necessity and for survival, thus pushing those people into the massive failure known as Healthcare.gov.
Of course that was probably the whole point to begin with. We will never see a single-payer socialized system until the government can take full control of yet another industry. But first, the free market has to be framed for failing the American people… and that’s what the ACA is meant to accomplish.
Until next time, live well.
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