72% Say Health Plan Likely to Shift Employees from Private Insurance to Government Plan rasmussenreports.com Rasmussenreports.com Thu Nov 5, 9:45 am ET Seventy-two percent (72%) of voters nationwide say passage of the proposed health care plan could lead companies to drop private health insurance coverage for their employees. Forty-eight percent (48%) say it's very likely. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that only 16% say it's unlikely that employers would seek to save money by shifting their workers to a government health insurance "public" option. But only three percent (3%) say it's not at all likely. Under current proposals in Congress, companies that do not provide health insurance coverage for their employees would pay an eight percent (8%) fine. For many companies, that fine would be less than the cost of providing their workers with insurance. Most voters (53%) say it would be bad for employees if they were shifted from a private insurance plan to a government option. Just 25% think it would be good while 13% say neither good nor bad. (Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook. A plurality of Democrats (43%) say it would be good for employees if they were pushed from a private insurance plan to a government option. However, 77% of Republicans say it would be bad for employees to lose their private coverage, and 62% of unaffiliated voters share that view. But then 67% of Democrats fear private insurance companies more than the government when it comes to health care decisions. Eighty-two percent (82%) of Republicans and 53% of unaffiliateds fear the government more. Still, just 25% of all voters agreed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this summer when she declared that health insurance companies are "villains." Voters are now almost evenly divided over whether passage of the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats will force them to change their existing health care coverage. Overall, 42% of voters nationwide favor the health care plan. Fifty-four percent (54%) are opposed. Among the priorities outlined by the president earlier this year, voters have consistently named deficit reduction as the top priority with health care reform second. Sixty-eight percent (68%) say that passage of the health care plan will increase the deficit. Earlier polling showed that just 32% of voters favor a single-payer health care system where the federal government provides coverage for everyone. Most Democrats favor that approach while most Republicans and unaffiliated voters are opposed. Please sign up for the Rasmussen Reports daily e-mail update (it's free) or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Let us keep you up to date with the latest public opinion news. This national telephone survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports on November 1-2, 2009. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence (see methodology). Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information. http://news.yahoo.com/s/rasmussen/20091105/pl_rasmussen/governmentplan20091105
'could' and 'likely' ...how do these voters come to these conclusions?no facts to back up these guesses nor any intelligent reasoning...yet these idiots dont know anything about govt run healthcare or how it works in every other civilized country in the world... BTW,if we had universal hc, businesses would save a ton of money cuz they wouldnt have to pay for healthcare anymore.Duh!
My generous(multi millionaire) employer of 40 people pays for everybodies health plan 100%. And we all get the same care that he and his family do. My family and I are fully covered under what will be categorized a "cadillac plan"(whatever that means) if the bill passes. Under this bill my fully paid for free benefits totalling about 15k a year will be considered taxable as income/benefits. He has come straight out and said that he will drop the entire plan if this passes since the tax increase due to extra bene`s will be more than the tax increase O care will be(allegedly) And "we can thank the 10-15% have-nots for punishing the 85-90% haves". The whole idea behind this bill is to force everyone on the Obama care teet. They know most people cannot afford a tax increase right now. This is a bonecrusher for small business owners and incentives. "never let a crisis go to waste"
I would argue that a business can absorb the hit better than the total of its employees. So we are taxed at the personal level instead. If people have less money the economy suffers. And the USA is driven by the consumer. Someone has to pay.
Yeah your employer will no longer be paying your expenses.Like he's going to miss that?He will save a massive amount and be very happy.You now will enjoy getting reamed like the rest of us who pay for healthcare insurance yet still ahve to pay thousands of dollars for basic tests(co-pays and deductibles).Welcome to the freemarket healthcare and reality of it. Anyway under obama your employer would drop your coverage and the govt would pick it up.Yes your not going to be able to mri's for every scratch and boo-boo but thats the real world but at least you and everybody in this country will have a basic essential covered regardless of your employment status.
Look I am not whining. It is what it is. I`ll shop my own coverage and pay the penalty. To address your "free market" comment : you have to have a longer term view than "he is saving money". There are a few ways to retain quality employees and bonuses and bene`s are number 1. Now, nobody will get bene`s and he is not obligated to increase pay. If a competitor comes to me and offers to pay me as much AND cover me 100% in "cadillac" premiums...i`m gone like the wind baby. Thats free market in action. Oh, and me and my family of 4 have never gotten an MRI in 8 years of coverage. Thank goodness.
SW, ignore dsq. He lacks any understanding on anything fiscal, as most all libs. Nothing spells growth and prosperity for a small business like higher taxes... Health care plan hits rich with big tax increases By Associated Press November 02, 2009, 8:27AM By Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press writer WASHINGTON â The typical family would be spared higher taxes from the House Democratic plan to overhaul health care, and their low-income neighbors could come out ahead. Their wealthy counterparts, however, face big tax increases that could eventually hit future generations of taxpayers who are less wealthy. The bill is funded largely from a 5.4 percent tax on individuals making more than $500,000 a year and couples making more than $1 million, starting in 2011. The tax increase would hit only 0.3 percent of tax filers, raising $460.5 billion over the next 10 years, according to congressional estimates. But unlike other income tax rates, the new tax would not be indexed for inflation. As incomes rise over time because of inflation, more families â and more small business owners â would be hit by the tax. "Twenty years from now, we're going to see more and more small businesses ensnared into paying higher taxes," said Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, the top Republican on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. The tax would hit only 1.2 percent of taxpayers who claim business income on their returns, according to the estimates by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. But that percentage would grow as business owners' nominal incomes rise with inflation. In 2011, a family of four with an income of $800,000 a year would get a $24,000 tax increase, when the new tax is combined with an increase in the top two tax brackets proposed by President Barack Obama and other scheduled tax changes, according to an analysis by Deloitte Tax. That's a 12.5 percent increase in federal income taxes. A family of four making $5 million a year would see a $434,500 tax increase, about a 32 percent increase, according to the analysis. "These are very big numbers and very high effective tax rates," said Clint Stretch, a tax policy expert at Deloitte Tax. The new health care tax would come on top of other tax increases for the wealthy proposed by Obama. The top marginal income tax rate now is 35 percent, on income above $372,950. Obama wants to boost the top rate to 39.6 percent in 2011 by allowing some of the tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush to expire. House Democrats said they are proud that they found a way to finance the health care package largely from a tax on the wealthy. There is, however, little appetite for a millionaire's tax in the Senate, and some tax experts think it is a mistake to tap only rich people to pay for services used by all. "If health care is a benefit that is worth having, then it's worth paying for," said William Gale, who was an adviser to President George H. W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers and is now co-director of the Tax Policy Center. "This gives the impression that it's only worth having if someone else pays for it." Obama promised during the presidential campaign that he would not increase taxes on couples making less than $250,000. However, the health care bill would impose new taxes on people who don't buy qualified health insurance, including those making less than $250,000 a year. Under the bill, individuals are required to obtain health insurance coverage or pay penalties, which are described as taxes in the legislation. The penalty would be equal to the cost of an average insurance plan or a 2.5 percent tax on incomes above the standard threshold for filing a tax return, whichever is less. There would be waivers for financial hardships. To help afford insurance, families with incomes up to four times the federal poverty level would qualify for subsidies. The poverty level for a family of four is $22,050 this year. Republicans argue that the penalties violate Obama's tax pledge, and they liken the millionaire's tax to the Alternative Minimum Tax, which Congress enacted in 1969 to ensure that wealthy Americans cannot use loopholes to avoid paying any income taxes. The AMT was never indexed for inflation, so Congress must enact a fix each year to spare about 25 million middle-income families from being hit with big tax increases. "They're going down the same road by not indexing this tax," said the Republican lawmaker Camp. Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
John Boner crying for the wealthy... <img src=http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/4206/thumbs/s-JOHN-BOEHNER-CRYING-large.jpg>
Good luck shopping-have you ever shopped for hc?Who monopolizes hc in your state.You have a fmily of four?Good luck.You are a job layoff away from a rude awakening.You and the health of your family are at the mercy of your employment. Most people who are anti reform dont pay for their hc.Its either their employer or medicare(yes,the terrible govt.).So they are totally clueless about co-pays,deductibles and pre existing nonsense and all the other lies hmo's provide to their members.