There’s been an enormous amount of noise and news over the new health insurance law. Some are excited about free insurance policies for those who can’t afford them… others are upset about losing employer coverage or having to buy more expensive policies than their previous ones as their only choice.
What’s not discussed is how many taxes every person and company must pay unless they qualify for free insurance. There are taxes on hospitals, taxes on medical devices like heart pacemakers, taxes on prescription drugs, and even taxes on the use of tanning beds.
There’s even a new health insurance tax that gets added to the cost of every policy sold. But all these taxes on every healthcare provider and on the insurance companies themselves are being passed on to consumers like you through increased insurance premiums.
Insurance companies don’t make as much profit as many people think. After reimbursing your doctor, the hospital, and drug companies for their charges and taxes, insurance companies’ profit is only about $0.03 or $0.04 of every dollar of premiums… but why is this important?
Well, because the specific tax hitting insurance companies in the new law is not $10 million or $100 million… it’s over $100 billion (that’s billion with a “B”). And the money to pay all of those taxes can’t be paid by anyone else but you… so to be clear, these billions in taxes are being passed right back to anyone paying some or all of their insurance premium.
Of course, if you’re lucky enough to be getting free insurance, it’s only a problem for someone else. Unfortunately, most of us are that someone else.