In a March 17th, Washington Post article on Democrats’ health-care bill rhetoric several assertions from leading politicians were called into question. It is no surprise to find that politicians on both sides of the aisle exaggerate or even mislead to get political advantage. But one particular assessment was more telling than others. Toward the bottom of the article the writer calls out a senator from Wisconsin for the following tweet the article called misleading, and it's the one in the image above:
“#ReadtheBill & you’ll see #TrumpCare would allow insurance execs to personally make millions off your health care.” — Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), post on Twitter, March 8
According to the article, at issue is an Obamacare cap on how much of a CEO’s salary an insurance company can deduct from its taxes. Currently the cap is $500,000. The GOP want this cap repealed, period. Other types of businesses have $1 million deduction caps. What this means is that a company can deduct the salary as an expense from its taxes. The democratic logic must have been that more than $500,000 in CEO salary is excessive and thus not a legitimate thing to deduct. After all, you do not want a company to use huge salaries as a way to pretend they aren’t making any money, right? Insurance companies are free to offer larger salaries but not free to deduct them.
So why would the GOP care about removing such a cap? Because providing health care was not the primary objective of the GOP repeal and replace legislation. According to the article, five major insurance companies paid CEO’s $73 million in 2015. The companies were only allowed to deduct $2.5 million of it because of Obamacare restrictions. Naturally the companies want to remove that cap. They want to be able to deduct the other $70 million from their taxes as well. Now, if you are thinking this bit of crookedness is the point, I would encourage you to think a bit more critically.
Consider what kind of financial condition a company must be in to be able to afford to pay a CEO tens of millions of dollars per year in salary. Aren’t we being told by the GOP that these companies are barely making ends meet? Isn’t the system about to collapse because Obamacare is forcing them to cover all these awful and expensive sick and poor people? Aren’t the companies having to jack up rates to cover this lopsided financial situation?
While all the attention is on how Baldwin “technically” misled the GOP bill effects, the reality of how insurance companies are actually doing financially seems to be drifting quietly by, unnoticed. Also drifting by trying not to be noticed?... GOP hypocrisy!
The next time you find yourself at the doctor’s office praying that insurance will cover whatever you end up needing to have done,… think about where the loyalties and values of your GOP representative and senator really have always been regarding their "reforms" of the health care law.
“#ReadtheBill & you’ll see #TrumpCare would allow insurance execs to personally make millions off your health care.” — Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), post on Twitter, March 8
According to the article, at issue is an Obamacare cap on how much of a CEO’s salary an insurance company can deduct from its taxes. Currently the cap is $500,000. The GOP want this cap repealed, period. Other types of businesses have $1 million deduction caps. What this means is that a company can deduct the salary as an expense from its taxes. The democratic logic must have been that more than $500,000 in CEO salary is excessive and thus not a legitimate thing to deduct. After all, you do not want a company to use huge salaries as a way to pretend they aren’t making any money, right? Insurance companies are free to offer larger salaries but not free to deduct them.
So why would the GOP care about removing such a cap? Because providing health care was not the primary objective of the GOP repeal and replace legislation. According to the article, five major insurance companies paid CEO’s $73 million in 2015. The companies were only allowed to deduct $2.5 million of it because of Obamacare restrictions. Naturally the companies want to remove that cap. They want to be able to deduct the other $70 million from their taxes as well. Now, if you are thinking this bit of crookedness is the point, I would encourage you to think a bit more critically.
Consider what kind of financial condition a company must be in to be able to afford to pay a CEO tens of millions of dollars per year in salary. Aren’t we being told by the GOP that these companies are barely making ends meet? Isn’t the system about to collapse because Obamacare is forcing them to cover all these awful and expensive sick and poor people? Aren’t the companies having to jack up rates to cover this lopsided financial situation?
While all the attention is on how Baldwin “technically” misled the GOP bill effects, the reality of how insurance companies are actually doing financially seems to be drifting quietly by, unnoticed. Also drifting by trying not to be noticed?... GOP hypocrisy!
The next time you find yourself at the doctor’s office praying that insurance will cover whatever you end up needing to have done,… think about where the loyalties and values of your GOP representative and senator really have always been regarding their "reforms" of the health care law.
