More on the Health Care Labor Kickback

The Galen Institute, a health care foundation, writes:

“The Cornhusker Kick: Just when we thought the health care legislation could not possibly get any worse, any more damaging, or any more disgusting in its vote-buying kickbacks and special favors, then along comes this!

In marathon meetings at the White House, the president and congressional Democrats came up with a “big, fat wet kiss for labor unions” in exempting them from the tax on high cost health plans until 2018.

The deal exempts them from one of the “revenue generating” parts of the Senate health overhaul bill that exposes expensive health plans to a 40% excise tax. The tax on plans costing more than $24,000 a year for families and $8,900 for individuals would be paid by insurance companies, who would simply pass it along in even higher premiums.

And how is Congress going to make up the revenue? With another jobs-killing tax that would subject investment income to Medicare payroll taxes. This will hit small businesses and others that rely on investment income to build their businesses. Apart from the economic damage this would do, it is terrible policy to start thinking of Medicare taxes as yet another piggy bank to fund special political deals.”

The deal stinks so bad that even forced unionism synchophant Rep. Peter King (R-NY) objects to the new handout.