The Fate of the Torture Architects

Remove all ads!

There are plenty of cases where I can see split in the Democratic party as a reason for Obama not to have achieved X (though in all cases it looks to me like he's hardly even tried to do X). There are other cases where Obama has sole authority (at least as I understand it) and he's still done nothing. Like charging Cheney&Co with war crimes. I don't buy the 'political division' arguement there.

If reconciliation is the idea (i.e. not charge Cheney so he can trade that for something else), he seems to be holding all the cards and not doing anything with them.

 

I take it you are using reconciliation in the traditional sense of the word there, and not as in the procedure used by the Senate to avoid a filibuster?

 

Hmm, re-educated myself on that a bit, and the answer is... yes.

 

Aldeth - What I discovered is that the tax proposed by Obama and the Senate (which is opposed by the House, btw), is on insurance companies. Of course, that would be passed back to the employer, and the employer can decide how it wants to deal with the increase. So it is a tax that the insurance company would pay, based off the total price of the policy it sold: $8500 for individuals and $26,000 for families. So it's taxed before it even gets to the empolyer.

And there you have it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/business/09union.html?pagewanted=2

 

But those are for some high annual premiums. I would have to guess that most individual and family plans do not have a cost that high. I have a pretty good health insurance plan where I work. It's a PPO, so I can go anywhere I'd like for my care (although there is a chance it will cost me a bit more to do so.)

My company contributes 2/3 of the total cost of healthcare plan. I just took out a recent direct deposit slip, and multiplied my premium by 26 to calculate my annual premeiums paid. My personal contribution is $4,050 for the family plan. That means the total cost of my family plan is $12,150. So I have a pretty decent plan, and it is less than half of what the total cost of the plan would have to be to incur the additional tax.

The one thing I find strange with my company (I don't know if this is how it works in most companies) is that we have two different types of plans offered to us, and each type is broken down into four categories: Single, Married, Single with Child(ren), and Family. Since I'm married and have a kid, I'm in the family plan. However, the Single with Child(ren) category and Family category do not discriminate based on the number of children you have. It doesn't matter if you have one kid, two kids, or 10 kids - the family plan is the same price.

 

Aldeth - Yes, mine is similar except it is a 65/35 percent split. We got our increase last year (or the year before?). So our PPO plan for the 5 of us is something like $6000.00 per year on my side and $10,000.00 on the employer - that's just a rough estimate. I believe we pay way more out of pocket than you do in your plan though. But nevertheless the tax would not affect us either. But still, we have to wait for the final bill to see what is in it.

 

The ironic thing is that it is people in unions that tend to have these "premium plans". I'm sure there will be some sort of exemption for "negotiated plans" while the rest of us get screwed.

 

So do the corporate CEOs who sign those union contracts.

 

Yes, but I seem to remember some sort of a pledge that no one who made under $250K was going to have their taxes increased. Methinks, that number is either dramatically shrinking, or it will be another broken promise.

 

That particular broken promise was in my earlier rant, Snook: