Senate Health Care Timeline

Conn Carroll / March 22, 2010

Obamacare is still just one signature away from becoming law, but the battle over its repeal has already begun.  Key to this debate will be which elements of Obamacare phase in when. Back in December after Obamacare first passed the Senate, Heritage Foundation scholar Robert Book  produced the following chart (pdf) detailing how the policy is scheduled to be implemented between 2010 and 2017. Highlights from each year include:

2010: Physician Medicare payments decrease 21% effective March 1, 2010

2011: “Annual Fee” tax on health insurance, allocated according to share of total premiums. Begins at $2 billion in 2011, then increases to $4 billion in 2012, $7 billion in 2013, $9 billion in the years 2014, 2015, and 2016, and eventually $10 billion for 2017 and every year thereafter. Two insurers in Nebraska and one in Michigan are exempt from this tax.

2012: Medicare payment penalties for hospitals with the highest readmission rates for selected conditions.

2013: Medicare tax increased from 2.9% to 3.8% for incomes over $250,000 (joint filers) or $200,000 (all others). (This is stated as an increase of 0.9 percentage points, to only the employee’s share of the FICA tax.) (more…)