Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) is urging his colleagues to join him in an effort to again delay the Health Insurance Tax (HIT) from being implemented.
“As is the case with most excise taxes, if this tax takes effect, costs will be passed to consumers in the form of higher premiums as confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office,” Gardner said in a media release. “One of the cost drivers built into the Affordable Care Act (ACA), this tax was set to begin in 2014 starting at $8 billion and reach $14.3 billion by 2018; however, Congress suspended the tax from taking effect in 2017. Without congressional action, this tax will take effect in 2018.”
Gardner cited reports and studies conducted by the Federal Reserve Board, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) to establish a case for the delay.
“A study by the National Federation of Independent Businesses found that allowing the HIT to take effect could result in a reduction of as many as 286,000 jobs by 2023,” Gardner said.
The NFIB study was conducted by Michael J. Chow, an economist with the NFIB’s Research Center.
“The 2010 healthcare law contains a tax on the health insurance policies that most small businesses purchase,” Chow wrote. “Although the tax is formally structured as a fee on health insurers, analysis has determined that virtually all of the tax burden will be passed on to the purchasers of insurance: employers and employees. The NFIB Research Foundation’s BSIM model suggests that such price increases will reduce private sector employment by 152,000 to 286,000 jobs in 2023, with approximately 57 percent of those losses falling on small business.”