NEW YORK (YBH.ME) – In what can only be seen as the latest give away in the “sausage” factory that is the Obama Health Care effort, the White House announced tonight that unions will be exempt for eight years from the so-called “cadillac” tax on premium health plans.
Obama to give unions special treatment in health plan.
The proposed excise tax amounts to a 40% levy on health care plans over a certain dollar amount. The tax is to be levied on insurance companies who are then free to pass it on to companies and workers. Unions were against the tax, and therefore the plan itself, until the President and leaders of Congress carved out an exemption for them. Final numbers for what constitutes a “cadillac” plan have yet to be worked out, but currently stand at $8,900 for an individual plan and $24,000 for a family plan.
State and local government employees, which constitute an ever growing percentage of the U.S. workforce, will be exempt from the new tax until 2018 as well.
The tax was said to raise $150 billion over ten years. That figure is now at $90 billion after the deal struck with unions by the Democrats.
Unions were among the biggest backers of Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign.
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- Connecticut Unions Approve Deal To Change Health, Retirement Benefits To Close Budget Gap
- Obama’s Motivation: Unions Before All
John Romano is the publisher and editor of Yes, But However!, a musician, a former political correspondent for BBC Radio London, and a serial web entrepreneur. Follow him on twitter: twitter.com/yesbuthowever or John Romano on Google+John Romano article archive.
