[caption id=”attachment_128443″ align=”aligncenter” width=”638″] (Associated Press)
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Obamacare’s latest hidden tax is about to cost all insured Americans big time.
According to The Daily Caller News Foundation, all Americans who bought health insurance this year — not just those who enrolled under the Obamacare exchanges — will face an estimated 41 percent increase in excise taxes thanks to a part of the Affordable Care Act that kicks in this year.
This year, individuals will likely face an additional $514 in premiums and families will face a $719 increase. Those who use small group policies will see an increase of $688, according to an actuarial review of the Section 9010 by the management firm Oliver Wyman.
The tax will even impact people on Medicare and Medicaid-managed plans.
The only group exempted from the tax are people who work in large corporations that “self-insure” their workforce, according to the DCNF.
Over the next four years, those fees are expected to keep climbing. The DCNF reported that they will likely double by the end of that time period.
Republican Sen. John Barrasso told DCNF that the tax “is another example of how the president’s health care law was designed so the most painful parts of the law kick in years later.”
Barrasso and fellow Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch introduced legislation earlier this year to repeal the excise tax. It has 38 Republican co-sponsors, but no Democrats have backed the bill and it hasn’t gone anywhere.
Rep. Charles W. Boustany (R-La.) introduced legislation in the House to repeal Section 9010 with a bipartisan group of 218 co-sponsors.
