House Democrats oppose taxing “Cadillac” healthcare plans

   Over half of the Democrats in the House of Representatives have signed a letter asking that the government not tax the “Cadillac” health insurance plans. 154 Democrats do not agree with the idea of taxing a person’s healthcare benefits.

The letter from 154 House Democrats to Speaker Nancy Pelosi urges her “to reject proposals to enact an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans that could be potentially passed on to middle-class families.”

  This is a major part of the healthcare reform bill and with 154 Democrats opposed to the healthcare benefits tax and with almost universal opposition by Republicans to this tax major problems could be brewing for this bill. The health insurance tax along with cuts in Medicare are the largest proposals for funding this legislation. If a health insurance tax is opposed in the house the funding for this bill will be basically non-existant.

  And then there is another aspect to the health insurance benefit tax that has been forgotten that Rep. Joe Courtney has reminded us about.

Taxing health benefits was explicitly debated in the campaign by presidential candidates and people running for Congress

  You remember all of the debate in the presidential election about John McCain’s plan to tax a person’s healthcare benefits, don’t you?

Then-candidate Barack Obama attacked Republican Sen. John McCain in a series of television ads last fall for a plan to lift the tax exemption on health insurance plans, which he cast as a radical departure and a crippling new tax

  John McCain proposed this idea and was ridiculed by Barack Obama and other Democrats– and rightfully so. But now Barack Obama and the Democrat leaders are advocating the same policy that they claimed was “radical” and “crippling” just a few short months ago. What has changed that has made John McCain’s idea suddenly a good idea?

  Thankfully there are 154 Democrats and a united Republican party in the House to hopefully remove this proposal from the table and effectively kill the healthcare reform bill.

   The people spoke on this issue before the election and they chose a candidate who claimed that he did not support a tax on healthcare benefits. Luckily there are still many in the House of Representatives that  remember this. Hopefully they will be able to hold President Obama to his campaign promise on taxing healthcare benefits.