Majority Of House Dems Sign Letter Denouncing Tax On 'Cadillac' Health Plans

[IRemember]

Source: Politico

More than half of the Democrats in the House have signed on to a letter denouncing a key element of the Senate Finance Committee’s health care legislation as labor unions draw a line in the sand on paying for reform.

The Democrats are attacking a plan to finance expanded health care by taxing expensive health insurance plans. The plan, sometimes cast as a tax on “Cadillac” plans, would in fact include the health care plans of many public employees and union members and has triggered a revolt from Obama’s labor supporters and their many allies on the Hill.

The letter from 154 House Democrats to Speaker Nancy Pelosi urges her “to reject proposals to enact an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans that could be potentially passed on to middle-class families.”

“This is not an obscure detail of health care reform,” said Connecticut Rep. Joe Courtney, who drafted the letter. “Taxing health benefits was explicitly debated in the campaign by presidential candidates and people running for Congress.”

Then-candidate Barack Obama attacked Republican Sen. John McCain in a series of television ads last fall for a plan to lift the tax exemption on health insurance plans, which he cast as a radical departure and a crippling new tax.

The Senate Finance Committee proposal is more limited — it would tax insurers, not the individual with the plan — but still seems to contradict Obama’s campaign rhetoric. Labor leaders say they hope the White House — which has taken a publicly neutral posture — will back the unions as the Senate and House negotiate a final bill.

“I know for a fact that the White House believes in our principle: Make those who don’t pay, pay,” said Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, who is among labor leaders pushing for higher taxes on employers who don’t offer health insurance to their workers.

And the labor leaders are promising a battle.

“We will fight pretty doggedly attempts to tax benefits because we’ve paid for those benefits over the years — we’ve forgone wage increases, pension increases, days off and everything else to get those medical benefits,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told POLITICO recently.

UPDATE: The full tally of signers, I'm told, is now 156. The text of the letter is HERE

Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1009/House_Dems_labor_battle_plan_to_tax_benefits.html

[Wilms]

1. Good for the unions.

I just hope they don't forget about the rest of us.

[aquart]

4. They made the world the rest of us live in.

Wages are scaled to be competitive with union wages. If it weren't for unions, healthcare wouldn't exist as an issue, period. Try being grateful instead of petty.

[Wilms]

9. I made a reasonable comment.

Sorry to have offended.

[aquart]

2. GOOD.

[Laelth]

3. k&r for labor.

This provision is a direct attack on organized labor, many of whom traded wage increases for better benefit packages. I am glad to see that some "real" Democrats are standing up for working people in this country.

:dem:

-Laelth

[peacebird]

5. k&r! GOOD NEWS for once!

[Doctor_J]

6. How sad that ANY Dems are supporting these plans

and amazing that otherwise sane citizens are willing to screw other working people just to get HC from these hideous plans.

[wisteria]

7. Average laborers are not to be affected by this charge to insurance companies that offer Cadillac

plans. And, the original figures are being worked on to insure that just Insurance Co pay a tax on the money they make on these policies. However, if the insurance companies turn around and charge the policyholders, then those being charged would be CEO's and others making hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[amandabeech]

8. Read the OP.

The rules are being written so that many government and private sector union sponsored plans would be considered Cadillac plans, not just the CEOs.

Obama is running into a little problem here because unions were some of his most important backers.

[Crzyrussell]

10. The house

is taxing the worker, which will be most union workers. If it goes the senate way then the tax will be built in to the cost of the plan. The cost increase of the plan will be directly passed on to the worker or benefit reductions will be made if the employer doesn't agree to contribute more for health coverage.

I know in my case we will end up paying the difference.

[TygrBright]

11. There is NO SUCH THING as a "Cadillac" health plan.

There are only TWO kinds of health plans:

1. The kind of health plan we should ALL have; and

2. The kind of health plan most of us who have any health plan at all are stuck with.

They want to tax the first to fund the second?

I don't think it's a good idea.

adamantly,
Bright

[KeepItReal]

12. Mandating insurance and taxing insurance plans sound like poison pills

...designed to make a heath insurance bill as undesirable as possible.

[Oldtimeralso]

13. K & R

And a pat on the back for new AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. As a previous poster stated that there should not be a "Cadillac" health plan. The best health care in America should be available to ALL of the people of the USA.

As a person that has taken part in the collective bargaining procedure I can tell you that the health care benefits were part of a package that at sometime wage concessions were made to maintain health care.

The cost of the employees portion has risen drastically in the last few years. Co-pays have risen and coverage is further restricted.

The idea that health care should be a for profit business is capitalism at its worst.
The profits for the shareholders have gone through the roof and when the salaries of the health care CEO's can be so preposterous that if they wants they could by two Rolls Royce's with only one hour of their compensation.


note:edit for spelling