The following appeared at Daily Kos and elsewhere as a roundup of today’s activities and posts
We need to stop the excise tax on so-called “Cadillac” health plans – a tax that will affect an increasing number of middle-class workers over the next ten years. In the meantime, feel free to take a poll: “Do you think we have too much healthcare in this country?”
As I explained in The Huffington Post, I plan to devote a great deal of energy in the coming weeks to stopping the excise tax on so-called “Cadillac” health plans – a tax that will affect an increasing number of middle-class workers over the next ten years.
I’ve never gotten this deeply into direct advocacy before – but this is a bad idea. So there’s now a web page at the Campaign For America’s Future called “No Middle-Class Health Tax.”
Aren’t we opposing a measure that lots of policy thinkers in Washington have embraced? Short answer: Yes. This tax is based on the same kind of flawed, ivory-tower thinking that caused Democratic leaders to assume that an individual mandate to pay for costly private health insurance would be well-received by the party’s own base. The base is not pleased – and independent voters are not likely to embrace this policy.
While it’s been couched in other terms – “bending the cost curve,” etc. – this is a tax on middle-class Americans, pure and simple. The cost reduction effects are highly theoretical, but the pocketbook effect is immediate and real. It’s a cost-ineffective measure that’s likely to have the net result of increasing premium costs or decreasing benefits for hard-working people across the country.
This tax would also represent at least two broken campaign promises: that health reform would not be paid for with new middle-class taxes, and that (in the President’s words) “if you like the plan you have now, you can keep it.”
That’s probably why four union leaders attacked the plan in a press call earlier today. They presented persuasive figures showing that this tax would quickly begin to affect millions of Federal workers, eventually leading to multi-thousand dollar tax increases for benefit plans in Year 10.
If workers in the Federal plan are going to be hit this hard, can others be far behind? Progressives who have pushed for the public option should push equally hard against this tax, and for many of the same reasons: to prevent health reform, whatever its other accomplishments, from creating an undue burden on the American middle class.
And it’s worth asking ourselves: Do we really have too much healthcare in this country?
Go to DailyKos to take the poll. Possible answers include:
- Yes. My plan is way too generous. I can almost afford to fill all my prescriptions.
- Absolutely.. That’s why countries with more comprehensive coverage have far lower health costs person than we do. THAT makes sense.
- Maybe. My doctor didn’t ask for my watch as collateral the last time I saw him.
- No. I’m concerned about overpopulation and would like to see our mortality rate go up because people cut back on their healthcare. Keep the tax!
