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Thursday, September 17, 2009

Small Biz Health Care Daily: Taxes and the Baucus Plan

Explaining his new health care reform proposals in the September 16 Wall Street Journal, U.S. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, declared: “For starters, our plan pays for every cent of new spending without using additional tax dollars.”

Really?

But the Baucus plan does feature higher taxes, including on health insurers, medical device manufacturers, clinical laboratories and pharmaceutical manufacturers; an individual mandate tax (if you don’t get insurance, you pay a tax); and an employer tax for each employee it does not provide insurance coverage.

So, obviously, despite what Senator Baucus wrote, his plan does include higher taxes for higher spending. And that’s bad news for businesses and consumers.

Raymond J. Keating
Chief Economist
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council

1 comment:

jcjude said...

Yes, wasn’t that the plan to begin with…it was to distribute all the wealth of the rich..and you know, Hollywood people have all their lawyers so they don’t get hitched (pay high taxes) so who is left, we, the middle class…so then we barely make it…Well, we can think who??? You guess!!! Tax increase by our lovely government. Thanks a lot.