premium

Posted Oct. 12, 2009, on Huffington Post-Denver

The excise tax on so-called Cadillac plans is a central feature of the Senate Finance Committee's health bill. Most often, Cadillac plans are described as the "overly generous" or "gold-plated" plans offered to Goldman Sachs employees and other Wall Street types. The idea is that levying a tax on these gold-plated plans will encourage lower spending and help slow the growth rate of health insurance and health care costs.

The Bell Policy Center hails Gov. Ritter and the state legislature for their positive work to pass House Bill 1355, which will even out health insurance premium costs among small businesses and their employees.

We need to find ways to bring down the cost of coverage between jobs so that more middle class families can afford to continue coverage when they leave a job. One approach may be to make Colorado???s health care tax credit permanent and refundable, so workers can recover some of the costs of retaining health coverage between jobs.