According a chart compiled by the House Ways and Means Committee, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Education and Labor Committee, the House Democrats’ Health care bill would create a monstrous marriage penalty.

The chart put together by these committees relates to the “Public Health Insurance Option.” According to the chart, 2 people living together, with each making $30,000 a year, would pay $1,320 in insurance premiums. According to the same chart, a married couple making $60,000 would pay $12,000 in insurance premiums, a difference of $10,680.

I couldn’t get the chart to format but here’s the statistical breakdown by income:

$60,000 — Married $12,000 Single, living together $1,320
$70,000 — Married $12,000 Single, living together $1,960
$80,000 — Married $12,000 Single, living together $2,880
$90,000 — Married $12,000 Single, living together $12,000

I suspect that what’s infuriating married couples is that single people making $30,000 each not only are paying less per year than a couple making $60,000 but also that the singles are getting their insurance subsidized by the taxpayers, many of whom are married couples paying $10,000+ more in insurance premiums.

During a debate with Mike Huckabee on FNS, Howard Dean made this comment:

I think small businesses will be helped enormously by health care reform. Small businesses with payrolls of less than half a million dollars don’t have to buy health insurance anymore for any of their employees. I think that’s a big step forward.

That’d obviously be a good deal for small businesses. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be such a good deal for married couples dumped into the public option. This seems to agree with what the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Moffitt is quoted as saying:

Adds the Heritage Foundation’s Bob Moffit, “if an employer has a health care benefits package that is 12 to 13 percent of payroll, and they can solve their problem by paying an 8 percent payroll tax, I think they’re going to do it, and I think they’re going to do it significantly.”

I don’t know how many small businesses would dump their employees into the public option but I’ve got to believe that, given the choice between paying 12 percent or 8 percent of their payroll, most businesses, small, medium or large, would drop them and pocket the 4+ percent.

There’s an additional hit that the Democrats haven’t talked about, a provision often called the “concrete ceiling” by health care experts. A married couple making $58,000 a year and buying their insurance from the public option would pay $2,088 a year in insurance premiums. If that same married couple earned $59,000 a year, their insurance premiums would jump to $12,000. What’s worse is that only half of the $12,000 health insurance premium is tax deductable. That isn’t my opinion. That’s according to another table put together by the House Ways and Means Committee, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Education and Labor Committee.

The public option would cripple most families’ budgets if they’re making more than $59,000 a year and getting their insurance through their employer.

Technorati: Insurance, Health Insurance, Public Option, Concrete Ceiling, Marriage Penalty, Subsidies, Small Businesses, Payroll, Employer Mandate, Howard Dean, Democrats, Robert Moffitt, Heritage Foundation

Cross-posted at California Conservative