Who Will Pay For The Employer Mandates?
James Sherk and Robert Book of the Heritage Foundation posted a “WebMemo” yesterday that points out that low-income workers will end up paying for the employer mandates that are part of the House version of healthcare reform (HR 3200). They conclude the essay with:
“President Obama promised not to raise taxes on workers earning less than $250,000 a year, and supporters of an employer mandate claim that they will not make low- and middle-income workers bear the burden of paying for it. The focus on the surcharge on those earning over a million dollars a year reinforces this impression.
“However, low-income workers will bear much of the cost, paying higher taxes indirectly through reduced wages. The House bill imposes what is effectively an 8 percent surtax that applies only to workers who do not already have health insurance, most of whom are already in the lower-income strata and can least afford to pay higher taxes.”
As Thomas Sowell wrote in his "Medical Care Confusion" column yesterday: “An old advertising slogan said, ‘Progress is our most important product.’ With politicians, confusion is their most important product.”