LOL, look what else Daddy Obama gave you. He's so all caring about us all...man oh man. DUPED duped and duped
SNIP:
INSIDE WASHINGTON: Insurers pass tax along to the states
In this June 15, 2005 file photo economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington.
There’s more than a touch of absurdity in the way an industry fee in President Barack Obama’s health care law is being passed along to state taxpayers.“
They had a naive notion we were going to get something from insurers” who were gaining many new customers from the health law, says Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a center-right public policy institute. “It defied any notion of good tax policy
BY CARLA K. JOHNSONAP Medical Writer
There's more than a touch of absurdity in the way an industry fee in President Barack Obama's health care law is being passed along to state taxpayers.
As Alice in Wonderland might say, a curious tax just got curiouser. The burden to states could mount to $13 billion in less than a decade.
The Health Insurance Providers Fee was aimed at insurance companies. The thinking went: Because insurers would gain a windfall of customers, they ought to help pay for the expansion of coverage. Insurers say they have raised prices for individuals and small businesses to cover the new tax.
As it turns out, they are raising their prices to state Medicaid programs, too.
The federal government issued guidance in October requiring states to build the tax into what they pay for-profit Medicaid health plans that serve low-income people. The first year's tax was due to the IRS in September, and state governments are now settling up with insurance companies.
It works like this: State governments pay insurers for the tax. The insurers then pay the tax to the federal government. The federal government then reimburses part of the cost to the states.
It may sound absurd, but it's not amusing to state governments, which wind up losing 54 cents for every dollar of the insurance tax. State taxpayers end up the biggest losers, without any added benefit to their state's low-income Medicaid patients.
"It's like a merry-go-round with an extra loop in the middle," said Rebecca Owen of the Society of Actuaries.
The extra loop? The health law tax is not deductible for the insurance companies when they file their corporate income taxes, and state governments must kick in extra to cover that cost, too.
"If they're following the standard of practice, there's no wiggle room" for states to shift the burden back onto the companies, Owen said.
It's particularly troubling because more states are turning to private sector Medicaid managed care to keep health care costs down. An estimated 70 percent of Medicaid patients are covered by these types of plans.
Insurers such as Anthem, UnitedHealth and Centene manage the care of millions of low-income people in taxpayer-funded programs.
The fee on health insurance companies was one of several new taxes Congress used to pay for the health care law.
"They had a naive notion we were going to get something from insurers" who were gaining many new customers from the health law, said economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a center-right public policy institute. "It defied any notion of good tax policy."
all of it here:
Read more here:
INSIDE WASHINGTON Insurers pass tax along to the states The Sacramento Bee
