Ok – so now that you have given your brain a break, we can finish up.
Section 9009 was originally something else, and given the dynamic nature of these bills, I don’t know what it used to be. But now it is a fee of the producers of Medical Devices. Eyeglasses, Contact Lenses, Hearing Aids, and other retail goods are exempt. So your pacemaker, your artificial heart, your bionic knee, etc, is included. The fee, which is actually a tax, is 2.3%.
Any student of economics will tell you that while this tax was placed on the producer, the fact that these are goods that are highly inelastic, possibly even perfectly elastic, means that you can expect that most, if not all, of that tax will be passed on to you, the consumer.
Section 9010 puts a fee on health insurance providers. It’s that crazy kind of fee in the previous post, although with different numbers. Here, you could expect that not all the cost will be passed onto you, because there is some choice in health insurance plans, although not that much.
Section 9011 calls for a report on the effect of all this on the cost of Veteran health care, especially with regards to the medical devices and prescription drugs that they just taxed.
Section 9012 eliminates the ability to deduct expenses allocable to the Medicare Part D (prescription drug) benefit.
Section 9013 increases the percentage of income above which your medical expenses must be to deduct them from 7.5% to 10%, starting after 2012.
Section 9014 eliminates the deductibility of remuneration paid by health insurance providers to employees over $500,000. That was a terrible sentence, but that means if they pay their CEO $650,000, the $150,000 above $500,000 isn’t deductible. Why that is limited to just health insurers, I don’t know.
Section 9015 increases taxes by 0.9% for wages over $250,000 (joint return) in the FICA portion of your taxes. For those of you who don’t know, FICA is what funds Medicare and Social Security. This applies only to wages.
Section 9016 applies specifically to Blue Cross and Blue Shield organizations, and says that the special deductions that are applied in section 833 of Internal Revenue Code of 1986 doesn’t apply if said organization spends less than 85% of its revenue on clinical care.
Section 9017 was going to be a 10% excise tax on cosmetic surgery, but due to a later amendment, now applies only to tanning.
Ok – so there you go – that’s the Revenue offsets for the PPACA. I hope you feel super informed now! Back to our regularly scheduled Section 2701 tomorrow.
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