Congressman Pat Tiberi (R-OH) recently introduced a bill to repeal Obamacare’s so-called Belly Button Tax, a punitive tax on every health insurance recipient, to fund a temporary reinsurance program intended to stabilize the insurance market as more high-risk customers gain coverage. The tax is harmful to business, a disincentive to employers to provide health care coverage, and a contributor to rising health care costs.
The Hill: “The legislation has attracted support from several business groups and unions that have lobbied to end the fee, saying it taxes their plans but provides no benefits to their members.”
Retail Industry Leaders Association: “We appreciate that your legislation would eliminate this fee for self-insured employer plans and provide our retailers with relief from this ACA cost burden.”
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Hurts Business
Food Marketing Institute: “[Many supermarkets would pay] …totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees for small chains to millions of dollars for larger, regional chains. The supermarket industry operates at approximately a one percent margin, on average, so a fee of this size directly impacts supermarkets’ operations, workforce, and customer prices.”
Discontinues Coverage
Tax News: “In fact, some employers are cited as having already dropped health coverage for some spouses, citing this levy as a reason.”
Increases Health Care Costs
Business Roundtable: “This fee will significantly add to employers’ health care costs without improving quality, creating efficiency, or resulting in better health care.”
Insurance Business America Magazine: “[The tax] is expected to affect 190 million Americans and has drawn criticism from some who believe carriers will find a way to pass on the added cost…”
National Business Group on Health: “Imposing an additional fee through the transitional reinsurance program unnecessarily increases costs for the vast majority of Americans (149 million or 56 percent) with employer-sponsored coverage.”
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Obama administration’s proposal is “too little, too late.”
Wall Street Journal: “…business officials said the vast majority of their insurance plans wouldn’t qualify, and union officials said a large majority of theirs wouldn’t either, based on language from HHS.”
Obama administration’s proposal picks winners and losers
Wall Street Journal Editorial: “Count all of this as one more illustration of the way that ObamaCare has put politicians in control of health care. Some people get taxed but others don’t, some people get subsidies but others don’t, and some have to pay more so Mr. Obama can deliver favors to his political constituents.”
