The Baucus healthcare bill provides for a tax on “gold-plated” health insurance policies. But, as with the Alternative Minimum Tax, once slated to be imposed only on the wealthy, inflation will make most Americans liable to pay the 40 percent tax in a few years.
The tax applies to all individual policies with premiums above $8,750 and families of four whose premiums exceed $23,000. But the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the average health insurance premium for families of four will reach $25,000 by 2018. The average premium should pass the thresholds in Baucus’s bill by 2016.
