Senate Health Care Bill Would Force Some Middle Class Families to Pay $15,200 Yearly Insurance Fee, According to CBO Analysis

(CNSNews.com) - Forget the public option. Even without it, the health care bill presented in the Senate by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) would make some middle-class American families pay what amounts to a $15,200 annual federally-mandated insurance fee, according to facts revealed in analyses published by the Congressional Budget Office.

The fee would result from the facts that the bill requires individuals—but not employers—to purchase health insurance plans and that families that earn up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level would be given government subsidies to purchase insurance in government-regulated insurance exchanges while families earning more than 400 percent of the federal poverty level would be denied government subsidies.

A family of four—two parents and two children—earning $88,200 would be at 400 percent of the poverty level this year, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A family of four earning $88,201, therefore, would not be eligible for a federal subsidy to buy insurance under the Senate health-care bill. If the mother and father in such a family could not get employer-based health insurance—because their employers decided not to buy their workers insurance—the family would be required by law to purchase a policy with its own money that would cost an estimated $15,200 per year, according to the CBO.