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Most Workers Hurt by Tax on Health Benefits Are Not in Unions
A new study shows that a proposed tax on workers’ health care benefits goes far beyond union workers’ plans. In fact, at least 80 percent of the workers hit by the tax would be nonunion.
The study by the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education looked at both the excise tax on so-called Cadillac plans in the Senate health care bill and the revised version reached Jan. 14 between the Obama administration and union leaders that lessens the tax’s impact on all working families.
Ken Jacobs, chair of the Labor Center and one of the study’s authors, says the tax’s impact is not just a union issue as was portrayed in much of the media coverage.
Union members are relatively a small fraction of the total population that would ultimately be affected by the tax, under either the Senate bill or the proposed amendment….The vast majority of employees affected by the excise tax are not covered by a union contact.
It’s uncertain what shape a final bill will take. Senate Republicans are blocking action on health care reform and the House-passed bill would use surtax on the very wealthy to fund the bill rather than taxing middle-class benefits.
In an AFL-CIO Now blog post last month, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said one of the clearest messages from the Massachusetts Senate election was “voters rejected attacks on the middle class like the proposed excise tax on health care benefits.”
Congress returns to work next week and we will keep you up to date on the latest developments in the health care reform fight.
Click here for the full excise tax report.
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2 Comments
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I don’t know if the author Mike Hall is wanting readers to feel sorry for the non-union or if the AFL-CIO is trying to sell members on the healthcare tax. One thing for sure is, the methodology used for the study is an exercise in George W Bush’s fuzzy math.
“To estimate the share of union workers affected by the tax we assume the unionization rates of workers with job-based coverage from the Current Population Survey applies to the workers in firms in the KFF/HRET survey: 19.3 percent of
workers with job-based coverage through their employer are covered by a union contract.5 Assuming health premium costs are similar for union and non-union employees in the same firm, we multiply these results by the share of workers affected by the tax: 12.6 percent for union firms, 14.9 percent for non-union firms. This gives the fraction of the workforce that is affected by the tax and which is union and non-union in 2019. The same approach for estimating the share of union workers in firms was
used to calculate the amounts used in Figure 2 and Table 1.”
Well one thing I know is that if you like the Alternate Minimum Tax and the way it does not factor in for inflation you’ll love the Senate Tax on your barely covered health plan with huge co-pays and deductibles that will soon be referred to as Cadillac coverage. Americans are morons if they think that insurance companies are going to let thier hooks out of our ass as long as they are involved in Health Care. SINGLE PAYER YOU FOOLS!