Legal Commentary

Excise Tax Will Reduce Health Care Benefits for Workers With Little "Savings" In Return

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Jon Walker, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services reports:

The tax would be 40 pecent of the excess benefit value above these thresholds. We estimate that, in aggregate, affected employers would reduce their benefit packages in such a way as to eliminate about three-quarters of the current excess benefit value. The resulting higher cost-sharing requirements for employees would have an initial, significant impact on the overall level of health expenditures. Moreover, because health care costs would generally increase faster than the CPI plus 1 percent, we anticipate additional, incremental benefit coverage reductions in future years to prevent an increase in the share of employer coverage subject to the excise tax. These further adjustments would contribute to a small reduction in the growth in health care expenditures for affected employees through at least 2019.16 In 2019, these impacts would reduce total NHE by an estimated 0.3 percent.

(Emphasis supplied.) There's your "reform."

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 12, 2009 (boomark / email).