The proposed excise tax on employee health insurance: good idea, or too clever by 40%?

摘要

The US Senate Finance Committee began formal consideration of its health care reform plan on September 22, 2009. While subsequent media attention focused on the omission of the public option, a potentially transformative component of the plan is a proposed excise tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health insurance.12 In this Commentary, we explain why this proposed new tax represents a major development in health care financing and offer a preliminary assessment.