House Approves Cadillac Plan Tax Repeal Bill

By Allison Bell

News July 17, 2019 at 07:24 PM

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U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. October 9, 2016.

Members of the House voted 419-6 today for H.R. 748, a bill that could repeal the Affordable Care Act "Cadillac plan" excise tax.

The implementation date of the ACA tax has been repeatedly postponed. If implemented, the provision would impose a 40% excise tax on what the government classifies as high-cost employer-sponsored health benefits packages.

Supporters argue that the provision could help keep the federal health group health tax benefits exclusion from encouraging employers to drive up the cost of health care, by offering increasingly generous health benefits packages without much thought about the true cost of health care.

Opponents say the provision could hurt the workers in group health plans.

In the past, efforts to repeal the Cadillac plan tax have run into trouble when Congress has tried to search for other cost-cutting or revenue-raising measures to compensate for the loss of anticipated Cadillac plan tax revenue.

Analysts at the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office have predicted that implementing the tax could raise about $20 billion in tax revenue per year.

H.R. 748 includes a provision that would permit Congress to repeal the Cadillac plan tax without compensating for the effects of repeal on the federal budget deficit.