Sometimes you have to wonder if Max Baucus really understands the whole point of healthcare reform. Via John Cole, here's yet another demonstration that he just doesn't get that so many people are uninsured and underinsured because we just can't afford insurance.
Fewer middle-income families would qualify for tax credits to purchase health insurance, under a little-noticed change to the Senate Finance Committee health bill made just before the markup began in late September.
Under the bill, eligible individuals and families with annual incomes of between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty line would receive tax credits to cover the cost of insurance purchased through state exchanges. As part of a package of managers' modifications, Finance Chairman Max Baucus changed the definition of income from "modified adjusted gross income," or AGI plus investment interest, to simply "modified gross income."
That is a departure from the way all other federal tax credits are calculated, and it means when determining eligibility for the credit, the IRS would have to disregard a household's usual above-the-line deductions, such as for individual retirement account contributions and college tuition.
The effect of the change would be to put the credit out of reach for some families that otherwise would have received them by putting them over the 400 percent of poverty threshold; others would see a reduced credit. It also could create administrative problems for the IRS, a Senate aide said, which would have to create an income base from which to determine credit eligibility.
So you have to sacrifice your retirement savings or your kid's tuition in order to afford health insurance. Wasn't the whole point of this reform supposed to be that people didn't have to keep making those kinds of choices? Actually, you're not supposed to have a choice because buying the health insurance will be mandatory. Great system you got there, Max.