Two House Republican leaders want to keep the Obama administration from allowing multiemployer union health plan members get premium tax credits.
House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Education and Workforce Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., say they've seen news reports suggesting the administration wants to make the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act tax credit subsidy program available to union workers.
PPACA clearly limits access to the tax credit to those without access to affordable employer coverage who buy "qualified health plans" through the exchanges, Kline and Camp wrote in a letter to the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation.
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Unions have complained PPACA could make workers' share of plan costs too expensive.
The lawmakers cited estimates that there now about 6.2 million people in 1,800 multiemployer plans.
"While not all of these individuals would be eligible for premium tax credits, due to income thresholds, potentially millions would qualify," the lawmakers wrote.
The lawmakers are asking the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation – two congressional think tanks – to analyze the cost of that kind of expansion in access to the PPACA premium tax credits.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
