Using taxes on health insurance to fund Center for Research in government

[Aunt Sponge]

Establishes a Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research within the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, financed by a tax on accident and health insurance policies, to conduct and support health care services effectiveness research. H.R. 3200 - Summary: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (GovTrack.us)

(This quote is taken directly from the summary of the Healthcare Bill - summarized by Congressional Research Service, an arm of the Library of Congress (so no claims of partisan-politics can be used)

They're going to tax accident and health insurance policies in order to add a department for research onto the already existing Healthcare Research and Quality department.
This new department is called the "Center" for short.

How redundant is that?

[eelo]

Originally Posted by Aunt Sponge (This quote is taken directly from the summary of the Healthcare Bill - summarized by Congressional Research Service, an arm of the Library of Congress (so no claims of partisan-politics can be used) They're going to tax accident and health insurance policies in order to add a department for research onto the already existing Healthcare Research and Quality department. This new department is called the "Center" for short. How redundant is that?

It doesn't sound like duplicated services to me. They're doing a lot of stuff here.

7/14/2009--Introduced.
America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - Sets forth provisions governing health insurance plans and issuers, including: (1) exempting grandfathered health insurance coverage from requirements of this Act; (2) prohibiting preexisting condition exclusions; (3) providing for guaranteed coverage to all individuals and employers and automatic renewal of coverage; (4) prohibiting premium variances, except for reasons of age, area, or family enrollment; and (5) prohibiting rescission of health insurance coverage without clear and convincing evidence of fraud. Requires qualified health benefits plans to provide essential benefits. Prohibits an essential benefits package from imposing any annual or lifetime coverage limits. Lists required covered services, including hospitalization, prescription drugs, mental health services, preventive services, maternity care, and children's dental, vision, and hearing services and equipment. Limits annual out-of-pocket expenses to $5,000 for an individual and $10,000 for a family. Establishes the Health Choices Administration as an independent agency to be headed by a Health Choices Commissioner. Establishes the Health Insurance Exchange within the Health Choices Administration in order to provide individuals and employers access to health insurance coverage choices, including a public health insurance option. Requires the Commissioner to: (1) contract with entities to offer health benefit plans through the Exchange to eligible individuals; and (2) establish a risk-pooling mechanism for Exchange-participating health plans. Provides for an affordability premium credit and an affordability cost-sharing credit for low-income individuals and families participating in the Exchange. Requires employers to offer health benefits coverage to employees and make specified contributions towards such coverage or make contributions to the Exchange for employees obtaining coverage through the Exchange. Exempts businesses with payrolls below $250,000 from such requirement. Amends the Internal Revenue Code to impose a tax on: (1) an individual without coverage under a health benefits plan; and (2) an employer that fails to satisfy health coverage participation requirements for an employee. Imposes a surtax on individual modified adjusted gross income exceeding $350,000. Amends title XVIII (Medicare) of the Social Security Act to revise provisions relating to payment, coverage, and access, including to: (1) reduce payments to hospitals to account for excess readmissions; (2) limit cost-sharing for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries; (3) reduce the coverage gap under Medicare Part D (Voluntary Prescription Drug Benefit Program); (4) provide for increased payment for primary health care services; and (5) prohibit cost-sharing for covered preventive services. Requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to provide for the development of quality measures for the delivery of health care services in the United States. Establishes a Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research within the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, financed by a tax on accident and health insurance policies, to conduct and support health care services effectiveness research. Sets forth provisions to reduce health care fraud. Amends title XIX (Medicaid) of the Social Security Act to: (1) expand Medicaid eligibility for low-income individuals and families; (2) require coverage of additional preventive services; and (3) increase payments for primary care services. Sets forth provisions relating to the health workforce, including: (1) addressing health care workforce needs through loan repayment and training; (2) establishing the Public Health Workforce Corps; (3) addressing health care workforce diversity; and (4) establishing the Advisory Committee on Health Workforce Evaluation and Assessment. Sets forth provisions to: (1) provide for prevention and wellness activities; (2) establish the Center for Quality Improvement; (3) establish the position of the Assistant Secretary for Health Information; (4) revise the 340B drug discount program (a program limiting the cost of covered outpatient drugs to certain federal grantees); (5) establish a school-based health care program; and (6) establish a national medical device registry.

[Aunt Sponge]

Originally Posted by eelo It doesn't sound like duplicated services to me. They're doing a lot of stuff here.

Yep - tons of stuff there. Not all bad.

But is it necessary to use taxes ON people's insurance to FUND researching healthcare?
Don't think so - they can create and fund branches and research committees, etc, without it being IN this particular BILL and without them being funded BY taxing accident and health insurance.

That's ridiculous and everyone can realize that (I think they should, anyway) - [edit: clarifying: by this I mean I think that people should be able to realize that taxing healthcare ot research healthcare - within a healthcare bill that is suppose to lower the cost of healthcare is very redundant and defeats the point of the bill to begin with).

[Sugar Butt]

Originally Posted by Aunt Sponge Yep - tons of stuff there. Not all bad. But is it necessary to use taxes ON people's insurance to FUND researching healthcare? Don't think so - they can create and fund branches and research committees, etc, without it being IN this particular BILL and without them being funded BY taxing accident and health insurance. That's ridiculous and everyone can realize that (I think they should, anyway) - [edit: clarifying: by this I mean I think that people should be able to realize that taxing healthcare ot research healthcare - within a healthcare bill that is suppose to lower the cost of healthcare is very redundant and defeats the point of the bill to begin with).

I absolutely agree 100%.. especially with the bold

[Aunt Sponge]

Thank you, Sugar.

I especially don't get it - after this version that I've linked to was made public they were still arguing about "no, we won't tax anyone" ... well, they are. They're just not doing it directly out of everyone's paychecks.

That's misleading, if not a boldfaced lie, then.

It's still far better than the version that obama came up with - in there it said "The tax referred to in this section will not be treated as a tax."

[mpicky]

Originally Posted by Aunt Sponge Yep - tons of stuff there. Not all bad. But is it necessary to use taxes ON people's insurance to FUND researching healthcare? Don't think so - they can create and fund branches and research committees, etc, without it being IN this particular BILL and without them being funded BY taxing accident and health insurance. That's ridiculous and everyone can realize that (I think they should, anyway) - [edit: clarifying: by this I mean I think that people should be able to realize that taxing healthcare ot research healthcare - within a healthcare bill that is suppose to lower the cost of healthcare is very redundant and defeats the point of the bill to begin with).

They will be taxing Cadillac plans like income, that is no surprise, it is even what Mccain suggested during his campaign.

If your employers pays a portion of a benefit for you that is over above what is standard, then that benefit should be taxed as part of your income.

And, I disagree that using part of the tax to further research healthcare defeats the point of the bill. How can they properly manage and lower costs with no research? Besides, that isn't all the Center will be doing. If they don't put it in this bill, maybe it doesn't get done at all. They are trying to cover all bases in one piece of legislation, I see nothing wrong with that.

[Viva]

You realize that every bill will have redundancies, right?

You know, the cheapest thing we can do is have universal healthcare. We can't do things the cheap/efficient/easy way because too many people need to be appeased. Every bill is a car wreck that no one is satisfied with. EVERY BILL. That is seriously how legislation works.

[J.Ski]

Originally Posted by mpicky They will be taxing Cadillac plans like income, that is no surprise, it is even what Mccain suggested during his campaign. If your employers pays a portion of a benefit for you that is over above what is standard, then that benefit should be taxed as part of your income. And, I disagree that using part of the tax to further research healthcare defeats the point of the bill. How can they properly manage and lower costs with no research? Besides, that isn't all the Center will be doing. If they don't put it in this bill, maybe it doesn't get done at all. They are trying to cover all bases in one piece of legislation, I see nothing wrong with that.

[Aunt Sponge]

Originally Posted by vivalacrap You realize that every bill will have redundancies, right? You know, the cheapest thing we can do is have universal healthcare. We can't do things the cheap/efficient/easy way because too many people need to be appeased. Every bill is a car wreck that no one is satisfied with. EVERY BILL. That is seriously how legislation works.

Of course redundancy is to be expected - we're talking about the government, here. It goes with the territory.

Originally Posted by mpicky They will be taxing Cadillac plans like income, that is no surprise, it is even what Mccain suggested during his campaign. If your employers pays a portion of a benefit for you that is over above what is standard, then that benefit should be taxed as part of your income. And, I disagree that using part of the tax to further research healthcare defeats the point of the bill. How can they properly manage and lower costs with no research? Besides, that isn't all the Center will be doing. If they don't put it in this bill, maybe it doesn't get done at all. They are trying to cover all bases in one piece of legislation, I see nothing wrong with that.

Of course it's complicated, that goes with territory too.

But you don't think it's wrong at all for them to tax accident and health insurance in a bill that is suppose to reduce the cost of health insurance to people?

Taxing insurance makes the cost go up.
They're suppose to be working to make the cost go down.

I'd rather they fund the Center by some other means than taxing the insurance that people already have.

I don't have a problem with them forming the Center - I have a serious problem with them taxing people's insurance to pay for it.

[Viva]

Originally Posted by Aunt Sponge I don't have a problem with them forming the Center - I have a serious problem with them taxing people's insurance to pay for it.

This country has a problem with a single-payer system even though that would honestly be the most cost efficient option. All these things you complain about are stemming from them trying to make the bill deficit neutral while at the same time eliminating the things that would save money and control costs -- such as the public option.

I personally think all this deficit neutral stuff is a bunch of crap. I wish they would have insisted the war be deficit neutral before we started it because we could have paid for healthcare 5 times with what we have spent on that. Or how about the bailouts being deficit neutral? Why is it the only thing that would actually benefit the little people has to be deficit neutral?

That being said, of all the problems I have with this bill, a tax on rich peoples luxury insurance plans is seriously the least of them. The Senate has added tons to make it more expensive and less effective.

What we really need is campaign finance reform because this is what you get when you let the insurance companies basically write the bill. They WANT it to be more expensive. And they will probably get what they want because their interests outrank ours.