Greater Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce Business Journal Q3 2015 | Page 13

U.S. Senator John Barrasso

Middle-Class Americans Will Choose A Champion
With A Remedy For Pricey Obamacare
As the 2016 presidential race
kicks off, candidates on both
sides of the aisle are promising
to stand up for the middle
class. Voters deserve to know
that anyone who champions
Obamacare cannot honestly say
she or he is also a champion of
middle-class Americans.
The president’s health care law
harms middle-class families in at
least four ways, and even stands
in the way of people trying to
climb into the middle class.
First, the law raised or created
20 taxes that add up to $1 trillion
over the next decade. Many
of these taxes hit the middle
class, like the penalty for anyone
whose insurance does not satisfy
Washington’s long list
of mandates.
According to H&R Block, the
average tax penalty people
paid to the Internal Revenue

Service for 2014 was $178. The
penalties will more than double
this year. People hurt by this tax
penalty are not the poor, who
are exempt. They are also not
the rich, almost all of whom have
generous health insurance. The
penalty targets hardworking
taxpayers who don’t want,
don’t need or can’t afford the
insurance the president says they
must buy.
Other parts of the health care
law cost taxpayers indirectly,
through lower wages and higher
prices. These include taxes
on insurance plans, medical
products and employers.
Second, the law included so
many coverage mandates that
the premiums skyrocketed.
According to a study by the
Manhattan Institute, the health
care law increased the average
price of individual market
coverage by 49 percent its first
year. Families getting insurance

“The penalty targets
hardworking taxpayers who
don’t want, don’t need or
can’t afford the insurance the
president says they must buy.”

through work