Obamacare Fee? Whopping $63 Tax May Hit Workers
Commentary | An “Obamacare fee” being buzzed about on the web today may not be as scary as it sounds at first — an annual $63 fee that may be passed on to workers, or a calculated cost of $5.25 a month.
The Obamacare fee getting all the attention this morning is a provision to help cover people with pre-existing conditions who had previously been essentially barred from receiving coverage due to strict regulations now loosened by Obamacare’s new restrictions.
The $63 Obamacare fee is actually temporary and continues to decline until it is phased out entirely in 2017, the Denver Post reports.
According to a report on the terrifying new Obamacare fee, it will stick around for three years starting the year after next and will enable the millions of Americans unable to previously purchase insurance to begin participating in the insurance system the rest of us enjoy:
“The Obama administration says it is a temporary assessment levied for three years starting in 2014, designed to raise $25 billion. It starts at $63 and then declines … Most of the money will go into a fund administered by the Health and Human Services Department. It will be used to cushion health-insurance companies from the initial hard-to-predict costs of covering uninsured people with medical problems. Under the law, insurers will be forbidden from turning away the sick as of Jan. 1, 2014.”
Predictably, the $63 Obamacare fee has whipped the #tcot faction on Twitter into a frenzy. Admittedly, they’re an easily frenzied cabal. Some have tweeted:
The destruction continues: #Obamacare Pre-Existing Condition Fee To Cost Companies $63 Per Person huff.to/X1Ov6Y#tcot
— Mike Proto (@MikeGSP) December 11, 2012
It Begins: Companies Hit with $63 ObamaCare Fee, Per Employee, For Pre-Existing Conditions | Liberty News Network libertynews.com/2012/12/it-beg…
— Marjorie Haun (@Reagan_Girl) December 11, 2012
For me personally, the cost of one drink at Starbucks a month to cover everyone makes the new “Obamacare fee” seem less threatening, but not everyone feels the same way about steps toward universal health coverage.
Do you think the new Obamacare fee is an unfair imposition on Americans?
