The president of Empower Texans and Texans for Fiscal Responsibility recently sent an open letter to Texas’ congressional delegation asking them to stop the health insurance tax from taking effect on Jan. 1, 2018.
The text of the letter can be found below.
Members of the Texas Congressional Delegation:
Texans do not want the Obamacare tax on health insurance going into effect. Should you and your colleagues fail to act, this tax – along with the tax on medical devices – will go into effect January 1, 2018.
As our friends at Americans for Tax Reform have noted, the tax on health insurance and the tax on medical devices will lead to “higher premiums and higher costs for middle class families, seniors, and small businesses.”
Because Congress has failed to deliver on the promise to repeal ObamaCare, it is critical lawmakers act quickly to halt the imposition of these taxes.
It has been estimated that the Obamacare health insurance tax will force the elimination of up to 14,400 jobs by 2023 and thereby undermine the state’s economy.
According to research conducted by ATR:
Nationwide, this tax will hit 11 million households that purchase through the individual insurance market and 23 million households covered through their jobs. Half of the tax is paid by those earning less than $50,000 a year and it will increase premiums by $5,000 per family over the next decade according to research by the American Action Forum.
Next year alone, the health insurance tax will total $14.3 billion, while over the next decade, the tax is estimated to total $145 billion in higher taxes.
Already, American families have been hit hard by Obamacare’s tax increases. The law imposed multiple taxes that have increased the cost of care for families and reduced choice including a tax on Americans facing high medical bills, multiple taxes on health savings accounts, a tax on prescription medicines, and a tax for failing to buy health insurance.
Texas taxpayers expect our Members of Congress to stop the imposition of new taxes.
Respectfully,
Michael Quinn Sullivan
President & CEO, Empower Texans