An Obamacare tax took effect at the stroke of midnight New Year’s Eve that will raise consumers’ premiums thousands of dollars and no one is saying a word about it.
Obamacare’s Health Insurance Providers Fee, known as the “Health Insurance Tax (HIT),” kicked in Jan. 1 and nearly all consumers will feel the brunt of it in the form of back-breaking premiums.
HIT stands to raise health premiums around 3 percent a year over the next decade. That amounts to an increase of $2,376 per person on the individual market and roughly $7,000 per family in the small-employer marketplace, according to 2017 analysis from Oliver Wyman Health, a health care analytics firm.
The tax is levied on all health insurance providers that offer full coverage plans, which means consumers both on and off the Obamacare marketplace can expect some premiums increases as a result of HIT.
Like many Obamacare provisions, HIT started in 2014, costing insurance providers $8 billion. The following year HIT costs insurers $11.3 billion, before lawmakers instituted a 1-year moratorium on the tax for 2017.
House GOP lawmakers proposed a 2-year suspension on the tax again at the end of 2017, but failed get it accomplished before both chambers returned home for the Christmas recess.
As a result of no action on the part of Congress, small businesses, families, seniors, and taxpayers face the full weight of a tax that is expected to impose a $156 billion in the next ten years, according to America’s Health Insurance Plans.
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