So, what does this boondoggle do to the average working Joe?
Say a fella has health insurance from his employer right now, and makes $60K.
How much do his taxes go up? What happens to his health care?
How does that change if he made $100K instead of $60K?
Just trying to plan to cope with this crap until it can be repealed... not endorsing it by any means. ![[barf]](http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/Smileys/default/barf_smiley.gif "Barf!")
Short answer: we don't entirely know. They didn't bother to read the bill, or let any of us read it, before they passed it. As Pelosi said, "We have to pass it to find out what's in it."
If the bill is anything like what they've been discussing, it'll mean the following things:
Insurance costs will skyrocket. Doesn't matter whether you pay them directly or your employer pays them on your behalf. Your health care costs just went through the roof.
All companies will be required to pay for over-priced insurance for their workers, or pay fines to the IRS.
Medicare funds are raided to pay for the new bill, which will leave Medicare horrendously underfunded. Expect these goons in Congress to come back in a year or three and insist on additional taxes to fund Medicare, which will really amount to additional taxes to fund the current health care bill that they concealed from the CBO in order to be able to lie about this bill reducing the deficit.
There's a new Medicare tax applied to capital gains. I think it's 5%.
The worst financial risks will now be subsidized by people who don't represent any risk. Whether you're healthy or not you'll pay as much as the worst diabetic, cancer-ridden, congestive-heart-failure, obese tobacco smoker who needs a few lung transplants. This is to make insurance more "fair".
On top of that, you'll no longer be able to buy any type of insurance of your choosing. The bill mandates that all insurance plans sold must meet new Federal standards. If you've chosen to use a minimalist insurance plan in the past, your existing plan will be outlawed. If you have an expensive comprehensive plan, they'll still probably need to make some changes to comply with the new government fiat, further increasing the costs and covering things you'd never want coverage for.
If you choose not to buy one of these new expensive health plans, you'll be fined by the IRS for non-compliance. If your employer helps you pay for one of these overpriced, legally-required health plans, the IRS will tax you on the amount paid.
In short, health care will become far more expensive, businesses will have no choice but to let additional workers go or go out of business, and none of the underlying problems with rising medical costs will be addressed. Since nothing is done to get patients involved in the pricing of their medical care, costs will continue to spiral out of control.
