Courtney Leads Charge Against Excise Tax on Health Care Benefits
COURNTEY LETTER
New London Day
Jeanne Amy
Boston University Washington News Service
10/07/09
WASHINGTON – Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, delivered a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Wednesday urging the Democratic leadership not to support a health care bill that includes an excise tax on insurers of expensive employer-sponsored health care benefits.
The Senate Finance Committee is considering a bill that would impose the tax on high-value insurance plans beginning in 2013. Insurers would pay a 40 percent tax on the portion of plans that exceed $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families. Many middle-income Americans have insurance plans that surpass this threshold.
“The middle class has borne enough of the burden of the economic struggles of this country for the past 10 years that they should be shielded from the issue of who pays for health care reform,” Courtney said at a press conference on Wednesday.
The excise tax would offset part of the cost of the Finance Committee bill. The bills three House committees have approved would rely on other revenue sources to ensure that the legislation would be deficit-neutral.
Courtney’s letter to Pelosi included 157 signatures from members of the House; that’s 62 percent of all House Democrats.
“Any effort to try and tax health benefits along the lines of what the Senate Finance Committee has proposed is a non-starter for a supermajority that exists in the House Democratic Caucus,” Courtney said.
None of the House bills includes an excise tax, but many members are concerned that it will become a point of negotiation when the legislation reaches a House-Senate conference committee.
“There’s not many letters with 157 signatures; that’s what speaks volumes here,” Courtney said.
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