News Item

Letter to the Editor: End Health Insurance Tax immediately

Letter to the Editor that ran in Wisconsin’s The Journal Times on January 11, 2017.

Ottelien: End Health Insurance Tax immediately

Small businesses here in Wisconsin and across the country have had it with the endless barrage of regulations and taxes. As a small business owner, I’m not operating with GE-type margins and I don’t have teams of lawyers to keep an eye out for the next pointless regulation. With that said, one tax that has me and a lot of other small businesses owners really upset is simply known as the Health Insurance Tax (HIT). HIT is basically a sales tax that was put on all health insurance plans through Obamacare. Like any other tax though, the health insurance plan passes those costs down to us small businesses, increasing our premiums.

Estimated to cost $5,000 per family over the next decade by former Congressional Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the HIT literally soaks small businesses with higher premiums in order to pay for other parts of Obamacare. Yes, you read that right, Obamacare is using American small businesses to pay for itself — to the tune of $14.3 billion dollars in 2018. Now that Republicans have control in Washington, it’s time Speaker Ryan and our other

federal elected officials end the HIT immediately.

While Obamacare is likely to be repealed over the next several months, small businesses can’t wait, the HIT needed to be repealed yesterday.

Mike Ottelien