MSCI: Repeal The Cadillac Tax
The Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI) last week joined with nearly 600 other organizations, including the AFL-CIO, the United Steelworkers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers to send a letter to lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives calling for permanent repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s “Cadillac tax,” a 40 percent levy on high-end, employer-provided health plans that, if not repealed, will go into effect 2022.
Specifically, the letter asked lawmakers to pass H.R. 748, the “Middle Class Health Benefits Tax Repeal Act of 2019,” which was introduced in January by Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) and Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Penn.). The current bill has 210 cosponsors. (In the 115thCongress, which adjourned last year, similar legislation garnered a bipartisan list of more than 300 cosponsors.)
Although the tax isn’t slated to hit until 2022, employers are faced with a long benefits planning window, between two and five years, which means they have already been making benefits changes to avoid triggering the tax.
The letter explained, “The tax will disproportionately tax the health plans of women, seniors, working middle class families, the sick, and the disabled. Small businesses that already struggle to offer health care coverage will also be heavily penalized. This tax has real and harmful consequences – Americans cannot afford to pay more for their health care.”