CALL CONGRESS!
Stop the Health Benefits Tax!

A 40% tax on health plans offered by employers is an outrage!

The Senate version of the healthcare bill before Congress would apply a 40% tax on many — and eventually most — employer-paid plans. This would simply be a disaster for working people.

Call the Capitol Hill switchboard today at 202-224-3121, and ask to be connected to the office of your member of the House of Representatives; call again for each of your two Senators. Tell them not to tax your healthcare benefits!

Both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have passed healthcare bills, and the representatives of the two wings of Congress are now working to merge the bills into a unified piece of legislation.

While both bills fall far short of the kind of healthcare reform UE advocates (see: Healthcare for All, UE Policy), the Senate bill contains a provision that is very dangerous to workers, our families, and our healthcare.

The Senate proposes to finance the other changes in its bill by imposing a 40 percent tax on health plans offered by employers. The tax would affect health plans costing $23,000 or more for family coverage in 2013, and $8,500 for single coverage. Because this tax is not indexed to the rapid rate of inflation in healthcare premiums, even if it does not affect your healthcare plan immediately, in a few years it certainly will.

If this tax is imposed, some employers will make their workers pay it. But in most cases, employers will avoid the tax by getting rid of good healthcare plans, and putting their workers in cheaper healthcare plans with much higher deductibles and co-pays and much worse coverage. “Healthcare reform” will turn out to be “healthcare deform” for millions of families who end up with much worse health coverage that costs them more, and means that they cannot afford to get sick.