The National Education Association, America’s largest teachers union, released a report on Thursday which is critical of an excise tax on high-cost health plans. The tax is required under the Affordable Care Act.
The steep excise tax is intended to burden people who enjoy generous health plans. However, the NEA’s report asserts, the excise tax actually tends to burden women, older people and people who live in places where the cost of living is already high.
Milliman, an actuarial and consulting firm, produced the report for the NEA. (You can view the full report here.)
The problem, the report suggests, is that the rules for assessing the excise tax erroneously equate high insurance premiums with lavish health insurance benefits. However, people often must pay higher premiums for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the benefits they receive.
“We believe that it’s more accurate to call the excise tax on high-cost plans an ‘Age-Sex-Geography Tax,'” said NEA spokeswoman Kim Anderson in a statement obtained by The Daily Caller. “America’s tax policy should not be a game of chance for working families.”
The report “highlights a significant and damaging flaw in the excise tax,” Anderson said. “The excise tax on high-cost plans can randomly and unfairly cause hardship to American workers and their families. In fact, the excise tax will disproportionately hurt women and older workers.”
Despite the finding that an important Obamacare provision wrongly punishes women and old people with “arbitrary and negative consequences,” NEA leaders are unable to bring themselves to oppose Obamacare, President Barack Obama’s signature first-term law.
“We continue to support the Affordable Care Act because it already has strengthened health benefits for kids and families and provided an opportunity for millions of Americans to obtain quality, affordable care,” Anderson explained.
The teachers union has called on the Republican Congress to pass a law that will “avoid inflicting harm on American workers and their families” while keeping the rest of the Affordable Care Act intact.
Last month, the NEA was in the news because “Wisconsin Jobs Now” — a small, radical group to which the union gave $125,000″ — sponsored a rally at which two protesters unfurled a banner declaring “ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS.” (RELATED: OWN IT: ‘ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS’ SIGN Shows Up At NEA-Funded Protest)
In November, the NEA, which spends millions of dollars each election cycle on campaign speech, zealously endorsed a constitutional amendment that would limit everyone else’s ability to spend money speaking about politics. (RELATED: Teachers Union Wants To Amend Constitution To Limit EVERYONE ELSE’S Campaign Speech)
“Let us not deny the regular people a voice in determining the future of our country,” urged NEA President Lily Eskelsen García, adding that she wants “to turn down the volume on corporate speech.”
In January 2014, prior to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, the union representing over three million elementary and secondary teachers sent a 1,122-word letter to Obama outlining its policy wish list. Almost none of the longwinded letter bothered to mention the needs of American students. (RELATED: National Education Association IGNORES K-12 Students In State Of The Union Wish List)
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