so heres a list of some of what we can expect, or not.

I don’t for instance understand why they would need to tax medical device manufac.'s and then re-distribute the money to other device makers based on market share…

Or a 10% tax on tanning salons? Wtf?



WASHINGTON--The question of how to pay for new subsidies to cover the uninsured is likely to be one of the most contentious issues in upcoming House-Senate negotiations on health-care legislation. Here's an overview of how the tax provisions in the two bills stack up.

--High-income Americans are likely to see their taxes increase no matter which side prevails in conference negotiations, but it is a matter of by how much. The House bill included a 5.4% surcharge on incomes above $500,000, or $1 million for married couples. That would raise marginal tax rates as high as 45% in 2011 when the lower rates enacted under President George W. Bush expire.

The Senate bill includes no such income surtax. But it does include an increase in the 2.9% Medicare payroll tax on salaries above $200,000, or $250,000 for married couples.

--Unions and business groups will be working to defeat a 40% excise tax on so-called Cadillac insurance plans. The Senate bill would impose that tax on premiums above $8,500 for individuals, or $23,000 for family plans.

House Democrats are strongly opposed to the tax on high-cost insurance policies, but the Obama administration supports it.

--Health insurers would fare better under the Senate bill in some respects, but not when it comes to taxes. They would face a $2 billion industry-wide tax in 2011, ramping up to $10 billion annually by 2017. The House bill does not include a tax on insurers.

--Drug makers also face a $2.3 billion annual industry tax under the Senate bill, but would escape such a tax under the House version.

--Both Senate and House bills tax medical-device manufacturers. The House bill includes a 2.5% ad valorem tax, which would affect wholesalers and manufacturers and would exempt all retail products. The Senate would impose a $2 billion annual tax in 2011, to be divided among device makers by market share.

--Workers who contribute pretax dollars to flexible health spending accounts, take note: the health-care legislation is on track to put curbs on those accounts. Both Senate and House bills would cap annual contributions at $2,500.

--The amount of medical expenses a person can deduct from taxes would be curtailed under the Senate bill. Under current law, out-of-pocket medical expenses are deductible to the extent they exceed 7.5% of income. The Senate bill by 2017 would allow deductions only for expenses that exceed 10% of income. The House bill does not limit the itemized deduction for medical expenses.

--The Senate bill would impose a 10% excise tax on indoor tanning services.

--The House bill would close a loophole that could allow pulp and paper manufacturers to claim $24 billion in cellulosic biofuel tax credits.



A Comparison of Tax Changes in House, Senate Health Bills - WSJ.com

__________________

"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit...

Great idea, create a multi-$billion tax on the most successful drug companies in the world. (in terms of # of life-saving medicines)
Don't want them spending too much on research and development.
Same goes for medical device manufacturers.

__________________

I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to improve our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy.
Wynton Marsalis

IMO Not to worry about taxes ! Instead plan to put onesself in such a position that if it ratchets up to mean your hurting in respect to being able to enjoy the life style chosen it would mean total collapse of the entire system and someone would come along and fix things.

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Laws are purchased-Justice is prayed for.

Inevitably, higher taxes at the corporate level will mean higher prices for those products that they produce. Liberals are so damned stupid when it comes to economics, that they believe higher taxes at the corporate level will mean reduced profits to the corporations. I used to believe that they were economically ignorant, but I have come to the conclusion that they do not have the capacity to learn in this regard, and so they are instead, economically stupid.

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Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law" because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac H Tiffany (1819)

Who exactly do you believe "would come along and fix things"? If government, why would you believe that the entity that caused "total collapse of the entire system" could somehow "fix things" after that fact?

__________________
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law" because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac H Tiffany (1819)

Punish the achievers... it's the liberal way.

My question is, if this bill is going to bend the cost curve down, thus lowering the deficit, as we have been told ad naseum...why do we need to raise taxes at all? Could it be because this bill actually INCREASES government healthcare costs dramatically and that any supposed deficit reduction (projections themselves built on presumptions every honest broker admits are flat out lies) are due entirely to higher taxes?

__________________
"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

very good question and I have an opinion on that, compliments of Mr. Foster chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services;



$222 Billion, Ho Hum
Another warning that reform 'bends the cost curve'—up.

Among the astonishing things about the ObamaCare debate—or lack thereof—is that Washington is inundated with warnings about the destructiveness of this plan, and it doesn't matter. The agency that runs Medicare rung the latest alarm bell on Friday, and good luck finding any media mention.

Richard Foster, the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, reports that under his analysis national health spending will rise under the bills by $222 billion over the next 10 years. In other words, ObamaCare really does "bend the cost curve"—up.


Even that estimate exists only on paper, as Mr. Foster has the honesty to admit. Because "most of the coverage provisions would be in effect for only six of the 10 years of the budget period, the cost estimates shown in this memorandum do not represent a full 10-year cost for the proposed legislation," he writes. The report is punctuated by phrases like "unrealistic" and "doubtful," and Mr. Foster adds that "the scope and magnitude of these changes are such that few precedents exist for use in estimation."

That $222 billion is a net figure, even after accounting for the fact that most of the newly insured—18 million people—will be dumped into Medicaid, "where provider payment rates are well below average." And for the fact that ObamaCare is "paid for" only in the sense that Medicare's payments to doctors are assumed in the bill to be cut by more than 20% this spring and even deeper after that, which will never happen in practice.

Mr. Foster adds that other planned Medicare cuts would damage doctors and hospitals: "Over time, a sustained reduction in payment updates, based on productivity expectations that are difficult to attain, would cause Medicare payment rates to grow more slowly than, and in a way that was unrelated to, the providers' costs of furnishing services to beneficiaries." This is how price controls would work in practice, even as Medicare has hit its spending targets only four times in the last 25 years.

He says many providers will be forced to stop accepting patients who are insured by the government, as opposed to those who have private coverage "with relatively attractive payment rates." The resulting two-tier health-care system "should be considered plausible and even probable initially." As for the White House's promise that it will reduce health spending painlessly by cutting "waste," Mr. Foster isn't buying it. He writes that "we find the language as it now reads is not sufficiently specific to provide estimates."

The report also calls out the new entitlement program for long-term care, which is included only because it will start collecting premiums five years before it starts paying benefits. In return for this accounting gimmick, the fisc will be saddled with a program that Mr. Foster estimates will be bankrupt by 2025. It may be sooner than that, however, as the program will tend to attract sicker people, presenting the possibility of "a significant risk of failure as a result of adverse selection by participants."

Studies like Mr. Foster's have been coming left and right but they do nothing to stop the political march off the cliff. Welfare reform would never have had a chance if even a single analysis like this one had come out before the vote. But somehow Democrats get a pass from the press corps and political class because—why?

ObamaCare Will Increase Health-Care Costs - WSJ.com
Among the astonishing things about the ObamaCare debate—or lack thereof—is that Washington is inundated with warnings about the destructiveness of this plan, and it doesn't matter. The agency that runs Medicare rung the latest alarm bell on Friday, and good luck finding any media mention.

Richard Foster, the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, reports that under his analysis national health spending will rise under the bills by $222 billion over the next 10 years. In other words, ObamaCare really does "bend the cost curve"—up.

__________________

"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit...

Anyone who believes that you can dramatically increase the demand for healthcare services (by increasingly the subsidization of those who can't otherwise afford it) AND decrease costs (as opposed to price) is too fucking stupid to be allowed anywhere near public policy, or a voting booth.

__________________
"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane