According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, it’s not happening. The Hill reports
“Taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year will pay roughly $3.9 billion more in taxes–in 2019 alone–due to healthcare reform, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’s official scorekeeper.
The new law raises $15.2 billion over 10 years by limiting the medical expense deduction, a provision widely used by taxpayers who either have a serious illness or are older.
Taxpayers can currently deduct medical expenses in excess of 7.5 percent of their adjusted gross income. Starting in 2013, most taxpayers will only be able to deduct expenses greater than 10 percent of AGI. Older taxpayers are hit by this threshold increase in 2017.
Once the law is fully implemented in 2019, the JCT estimates the deduction limitation will affect 14.8 million taxpayers — 14.7 million of them will earn less than $200,000 a year. These taxpayers are single and joint filers, as well as heads of households.”
Here is more, as if this wasn’t enough. Over at the Washington Examiner Marie Grace Turner gives a list of the new taxes brought to you by “Obamacare.”
- “Breath tax”: The infamous “death tax” now has a new sibling: the $17 billion “breath tax.” The new health overhaul law requires everyone in America who breathes to have health insurance by 2014; some will get subsidies, but most will have to pay a fine if they don’t buy the health insurance required by the federal government. Last week, Internal Revenue Commissioner Douglas Shulman said that enforcement of the individual mandate will come by seizing tax refunds and “collection, if need be.”
- Taxes on medical devices: Surgical scissors, wheelchairs, intravenous bags, dental retainers and braces, CT scanners, stretchers, exam room tables, heart stents, pacemakers, surgical gloves, spineboards at every local pool, scales at a doctor’s office or health club, any diagnostic test for any disease or condition – all will be among the products and procedures subject to ObamaCare’s special $20 billion medical device tax beginning in 2013. This tax will make these medical supplies more expensive, will drive up the cost of health care and health insurance for Americans, will threaten jobs in the medical device industry, and confiscate money needed for new innovative breakthroughs.
- New Tax on Health Insurance Providers: Even though soaring health costs are the problem Americans most wanted government to solve, ObamaCare promises to drive costs even higher by instituting a new $60 billion tax on health insurers. Insurers and health plans can be expected to pass along this tax to policyholders through higher premiums. So starting in 2014, Americans will be forced to buy health insurance, and the federal government will be actively making it more expensive.
- Medicare Payroll Tax: Starting in 2013, ObamaCare increases the Medicare payroll tax for many small business owners and others earning more than $250,000 a year. This tax hike will place yet another burden on small business owners who the country needs to create jobs and lead the economy into recovery. This job-killing payroll tax is estimated to raise $86.8 billion over seven years.
- New Tax on Investment: In addition to the Medicare payroll tax hike, investment income will now be subject to a tax of 3.8% starting in 2013 for those in higher income categories. Even middle-class homeowners who realize a capital gain of $250,000 or more on the sale of their home will be hit by this Medicare tax, which will drain another $123.4 billion out of taxpayers’ pockets and into the government’s coffers over seven years.
- New Drug Tax: ObamaCare’s new tax on brand-name drugs kicks in next year and is estimated to raise $27 billion over nine years. The public can expect to have these costs passed on to them in the form of higher drug prices and higher insurance costs.