That’s how Fortune’s Shawn Tully characterizes the distributional effects of the House health-care plan. His excellent piece on the “winners and losers” in health reform notes that once your family’s income goes much higher than $60,000, you start losing, big-time, from higher taxes and other penalties.
And if you believe that line from the president about keeping your health care if you’re happy with it, well —
First, while the bills favored by the Administration contain a “pay
or play” provision allowing employers to eliminate their medical plans
in exchange for paying a penalty or tax — with the most prominent bill
in the House, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, imposing
a payroll tax of 8% in these cases — many large employers are already
paying over 8% of their payrolls in medical expenses. So they can
actually lower costs and raise profits by shedding their plans.Second,
health-care expenses are rising so fast that companies end up
accounting for them in higher costs, fewer jobs, and eventually, lower
pay for their employees. That’s a difficulty many of them may want to
do without: “Most companies will take the ‘pay’ option to get off of
the health cost escalator and leave it to the government,” says Ed
Haislmaier of the conservative Heritage Foundation.Third, more
and more companies are already terminating their plans each year.
Obamacare is simply likely to speed up that process.
