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Additional Taxes On BCBS Bills Itemized and Attributed to Obamacare...

I've been a little late to jump on the Obamacare bashing bandwagon.  Not because I don't have anything to criticize, but because there has been so much unknown.

But last week, I got the first glimpse of true details that you can sink your teeth into - Namely, what additional taxes on medical insurance invoices are directly attributed to Obamacare?  Now we know, thanks to BCBS of Alabama.  More from AL.com:

"Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama wants its customers to know that taxes on health insurance have increased due to the Affordable Care Act.
 
To convey that message, BCBS of Alabama will list those federal tax increases as a separate line item on consumer bills, according to NPR, citing a Kaiser Health News report.
 
BCBS of Alabama spokesperson Koko Mackin told NPR that the tax breakout accounts for four new charges: a $2 fee for the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute; a premium tax of about 2 percent; a user fee of 3.5 percent to help pay for healthcare.gov; and an additional charge to pay for reinsurance."
 
Add it all up, and it comes in somewhere between 5 and 10%.
 
But wait!  Someone has spoken to clear it all up.  It's not so much a tax as it is a pass-through:
 
"Mark Hall, a law professor at Wake Forest University, told NPR that the tax should be thought of as a pass-through, rather than extra money in the federal government's coffers.
 
"The government doesn't keep the fee," he said. "It's just a pass-through, from some insurers to other insurers."
 
That's rich.  What he means to say is that you're being charged (can't say tax!) for premiums that are unrelated to you.  Is that a tax?  Or a pass-through?  I'll let you decide.
 
I'm glad companies like BCBS of Alabama are muscling up and showing the fees and providing some visible form of accountability.  There's really been very little of that through this whole thing.

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