Health Care Reform Means Higher Taxes

Most Americans will face higher taxes under the health care legislation in Congress.  In the Senate bill, for every middle-class family who would benefit from the subsidy to help pay for health insurance, five middle-class families would pay higher taxes. 

A majority of members in the House of Representatives don’t support the Senate bill, but it must be passed in order to enact reform.  If the House finds a way to pass the Senate bill, House leaders say they’ll pass separate legislation to make changes to satisfy a majority of House Democrats and the President.  There are variations in the reform proposals, but all of them would raise about $500 billion in taxes to pay for the new government spending in health care reform.

The burden of the tax increases to pay for this spending falls primarily on middle-class Americans.  According to the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation, in the Senate bill, 93 percent of individuals and families in America won’t receive a subsidy, and 73 million of them earning less than $200,000 a year, would pay higher taxes.  These people would see their taxes go up as a result of the high premium excise tax, the medical expense deduction limitation and/or the additional Medicare payroll tax rate.  The cost to these families and the number of families affected grows if you factor in the fees on health insurance companies and medical device makers, which the Congressional Budget Office has said would be passed on to consumers through higher premiums.

The facts are clear:  health care reform will impose a substantial new tax burden on the middle class.