The Definitive Dossier on the House Health Care Bill (Pages 1-500) Part III

I'm going to combine two parts into one post because they are both small enough. So, for the third part, I will analyze the new taxes in the bill as well as community group benefits.

Now, specific tax increases are NOT in this bill. Those still haven't been finalized. What's in this bill are requirements of both employers and employees that amount to either extra costs or penalties. The end result is the same. This can be found on pages 149-170. It starts with the section entitled "employer contribution in lieu of coverage".

The taxes are levied both on small businesses and on individuals. All businesses with revenues of $250,000 and more would now be required to provide health insurance for their employees. These insurance plans would then have to meet the standards set out by government bureaucrats. Any business that makes $400,000 and more in revenues will be penalized an extra 8% payroll tax if they don't comply with this new regulation. Any business with revenues of $250,000-$400,000 would be levied a payroll tax of 2-6% on a sliding scale if they don't comply with the new regulation. Meanwhile, individuals that don't get insurance that meets the criteria of the government will be levied a 2.5% pay roll tax. Finally, on page 170, all resident aliens are exempt from everything I just listed.

Also in this bill are references to "community group benefits". For instanc, on page 472, the bill says "payment to community based organizations". On page 469, payments are earmarked for "community based home medical care." On page 95, the bill authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to conduct community outreach to sign up folks in underserved areas. Of course, community based groups will be contracted out to sign up all these folks. On page 321, the bill mandates that hospital expansion face "community input". Now, "community based" is a broad term and is really not very defined in the bill. I believe that most conservatives will see "community based" as a code word for ACORN and other such groups.

Here are the analyses for parts I and part II.