Ever since the Supreme Court ruled on the Obama administration's Affordable Care Act, one word has been coming up over and over again: TAXES. The way I'm hearing some people tell it, you'd think the new law was going to tax families tens of thousands of dollars just to pay for a bunch of lazy bums' health care. But reports of insane new taxes for middle-class families have been greatly exaggerated. (If not downright fabricated.)
Let's come back down to Earth and do the math. I know! Math is hard, right? It's so much easier to spew whatever bullshit the pundits are making up. That's why the Kaiser foundation has created a health reform subsidy calculator that lets you cut through the hot air and just figure out exactly how this is going to affect your family's bottom line.
Middle class families not covered through an employer will get a tax subsidy, not a tax increase. The Christian Science Monitor used Kaiser's calculator to figure that a family of four with a household income of $60,000 a year would gain a $9,308 tax subsidy. (FYI, that's the opposite of paying a tax.) That would go toward paying for health insurance, which would otherwise cost them an estimated $14,000. So with the tax subsidy, they're paying around $5,000 a year for health insurance, making it much more affordable.
In 2009 it was estimated that health care costs top $8,000 per person, per year. And of course that amount rises every year.
What if you cannot afford to buy health insurance? The new law deems you exempt if your insurance premiums would exceed 8 percent of your income after tax subsidies and employer contributions. You may qualify for Medicaid since the bill provides funds for states to expand their programs to cover more people. Then again, your state may opt out of the expansion. If you're concerned, you should let your governor and state legislator know how you feel about this.
Who's gonna pay more taxes? People who do not qualify for Medicaid and who refuse to get health insurance will be fined a tax penalty: Around $695 per person or 2 percent of your income in 2016. In Massachusetts, under Romney's health care mandate, only 1 percent of people choose not to carry health insurance.
Also, high-income individuals will pay a 3.8 percent tax on investment income. P.S. You are not high income.
Have you calculated how the new law will affect your family?
Image via taxbrackets.org
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Comments 46
And how did that work out for his re-election?
Within 24 hours of the announcement, 43,000 donations flooded into the Romney campaign totaling over$4,300,000!!!
Our government has wasted trillions of dollars on unnecessary wars but THIS is what gets people up in arms? Making sure all Americans have healthcare? Read that word again : HEALTHCARE. This is something we all need to survive. Our current system is broken. There are millions of middle class Americans who work very hard who cannot afford health insurance but who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid. There are women for whom their entire pregnancies and labor/delivery are covered by Medicaid because they're poor but me and my husband had to pay an arm and a leg because we make too much - but not enough to cover our health care bills. It's absolutely shocking to me that anyone would want to prevent people from getting health coverage. The massive influx of customers will prevent premiums from going up. It's just like how we're required to have car insurance and home owners insurance.
Please try to join the real world. My family does not qualify for Medicaid. We cannot afford the $1100 a month it would cost us for health insurance. That quote "Those who refuse to buy insurance" infuriates me. I would love to have insurance, we just can't afford it. Maybe if we quit providing cell phones for welfare clients and welfare benefits to illegal people...the government could help the middle class out instead of sending us into poverty. Who is going to pay for all these benefits for the "poor" when the government completely wipes the middle class out?
Healthcare for everyone will not wipe the middle class out. When the number of customers goes up by billions of people the massive influx of customers will eventually push premiums down. Why is it no one is up in arms that we require all people who drive to have car insurance and everyone who owns a home to have home owners insurance but when we require everyone to insure their bodies everyone gets all upset? When everyone is insured we'll no longer have massive increases in premiums and hospital costs from all those uninsured people using hospital services and never paying. I'm not saying it's going to be a smoothe transition nor am I saying it will start off being cheaper, but in the long run this will help American citizens immensely.
$230,000,000,000 in new costs to the government. Gee, wonder where that money is going to come from...
Guess what liberals, that ain't all going to magically fall from the sky by "taxing some rich guy"...
Remember the Medicare Trust Fund? The program that tens of millions of working taxpayers paid into every single paycheck all of their lives to help pay for their healthcare in retirement? Well, that fund has been raided to partially defray some of the costs for the first two years of OWEbama care. Unfortunately after that it will be depleted, and the full burden of the cost of care for all of those boomers will suddenly come crashing down on the taxpayer. You think your health insurance is expensive now, look out! You think your taxes are high now, look out! You think the economy is bad now, lookout! Don't worry, the end result will be that due to reduced quality of care, the boomers will die off sooner...
@guest 1- Thanks for making my point Bush said 'read my lips, no new taxes and he was a one term president.'
@guest 2-Thanks for pointing that out to guest 1.
@suburbanmom-Is the Obama campaign giving you money for putting out all these talking points or do you just not knowany better? There will not be billion's more people with healthcare. There will billion's paying the $700 hundred dollar penalty because its cheaper. I know its hard to understand how business works when you've never had one but at least open your mind a little bit. The middle class is hurting, and if you know all about the supreme court decision you should know its ruling had a major effect on medicade. The decision was it can't make state's expand their medicade and since most states are in trouble right now most of them wont do it on their own. That means the IRS will be flooded trying to figure out who is poor enough not to pay the penalty or not. Also if this tax thing isn't a big deal how come Obama refused to say the three letter word during his speech? I'll tell you why because he knows it will be political suicide. After all he knows what happened to Bush 41.
@dumbass(good name choice by the way)-What are you talking about? Your question doesn't make any sence. So I will try to answer your question's even though you didn't make your point clear.
If wedon't have enough doctor's now, we wont be able to take care of the sick. Also I did a fact check and its not billion's added to the system its 35 million. Sorry that was my bad for repeating what I read on a obamacare supporter's comment. Either way 35 million more in the system with no new doctor's is a pretty easy equation to figure out.