The Affordable Care Act includes trillions of dollars in new spending on healthcare subsidies and programs. This new spending is financed by new taxes, tax increases, and reductions to Medicare’s budget.
The creators of the ACA (ObamaCare) understood that the law’s benefits (subsidies, expansions of existing programs, and new programs) would be more popular with the public than its tax increases, so many of the tax increases did not take immediate effect. The implementation of the more than 20 tax increases in the law was spread out over several years. The latest of the taxes is scheduled to come into effect in 2018.
Americans need to be aware of the cost of ObamaCare, not just in terms of their health insurance premiums, but as it affects their tax bill. In spite of the rhetoric that was used to sell the legislation, the ACA’s tax increases do not just impact the wealthy, big business or healthcare companies; many of the tax changes directly hit middle-class families, by reducing their ability to save tax free, limiting deductions for medical expenses, and imposing new taxes, including the individual mandate which will hit middle-class Americans who lack ACA-compliant health insurance.
The real tragedy of ObamaCare’s massive tax hikes is that they simply aren’t necessary. There’s a better way to reform our healthcare system that relies on market competition instead of massive government spending and control.
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