The clear implication of nyceve's diary currently on the reclist is that the excise tax's annual limits are so low that, any good insurance policy is likely to be covered under it.
This is simply not true and I wish the FDL bloggers would stick to the facts. There are plenty of valid arguments to be made against the excise tax. Even though I'm for the tax on strict policy grounds, I can certainly recognize that reasonably informed people may disagree.
But the bottom line is that nyceve is way off base in his assertions here.
First a brief recap of nyceve's point
The so-called Cadillac tax is a terrible misnomer, certainly for the millions of Americans paying outrageous premiums for bare bones junk insurance. I'm one of those Americans. Now they want to tax this too?
So many of us, have quite literally been priced out of buying anything resembling good insurance, and we're paying a huge amount for very inadaquate junk insurance.
When it came time to renew my own insurance, I asked the insurance broker, what it would cost to buy good insurance in New York State. She said, "sit down". I held my breath in anticipation, she said, "$1300 a month."
So here we are. Unless someone wakes up and understands how Americans are trying to cope with this collapsed system, we could be paying a Cadillac tax for very expensive and very inadequate junk insurance.
Clearly the implication here is that since a good policy costs 1,300 a month (at least according to the hearsay statement of a random, unidentified new york state insurance broker with an unkown level of expertise) the plan would be above the anual limit and subjec to the excise tax.
Back to the world of facts and data. From the USA Today, quoting a Kaiser Family Foundation Study:
The average cost of a family policy offered by employers was $13,375 this year
Unless one assumes that employers never offer "good" health insurance (hint: they do) then this clearly throws the whole implication of nyceve's diary out the window. Since the annual limit for family plans is 23K, clearly the average plan is significantly below the annual limit and one could add a little under 10K worth of benefits to the average plan before they'd even brush up on the annual limit.
But what about for individuals?
Again, the Kaiser Family Foundation supplies us with the the facts:
...the average cost is closer to $400 a month for individuals and $1000 a month for families.
Yes the average plan costs 400 a month. Not 1300 a month. That means you could add 900 dollars per month of additional benefits to your averaage plan before you would brush up against the annual limit.
To argue that the excise tax will hurt working people is a respectable argument. But to argue that it will lead to your typical good insurance policy being taxed at 40 percent is not supported by the facts and is sheer lunacy.
Let's all try to stick to facts when we make arguments. That's what's supposed to seperate us from the teabaggers.
Ed Note: I'm posting this not as a troll, but as a concerned citizen who sees the influence that FDL bloggers have had, and who believes they have distorted reality in their campaign against the excise tax. It's sad that I have to do this, but it seems when peoplpe cut against the grain their motives are often questioned here lately.
Ed. Note 2: My apologies to slink and nyceve who are no longer associated with FDL...didn't feel like going back to replace FDL everwhere i wrote it.