House and Senate lawmakers are finalizing a spending agreement and tax deal that would delay for two years a pair of major funding sources for Obamacare.
Top Senate aides told the Washington Examiner that lawmakers have tentatively agreed to delay the so-called Cadillac tax on expensive health insurance plans and suspend the medical device tax. Both were signed into law as part of the Affordable Care Act as a way to help pay for the law, which heavily subsidizes health insurance plans and expands Medicaid.
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The Cadillac tax is scheduled to take effect in 2018. It’s a 40 percent tax on health insurance plan above a certain cost threshold. The tax, according to the Congressional Budget Office, was to bring in about $87 billion over a decade.
Unions and health insurance companies have protested the tax and even Democrats who voted for it as part of the health care law now say it should be repealed.
Lawmakers have also come to oppose the 2.3 percent tax on the revenues of medical device manufacturers, which went into effect in January of 2013. The tax is supposed to bring in $30 billion over ten years but lawmakers in both parties have lamented the tax hurts medical innovation and raises costs for patients.
