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(Carson, City, NV) - Governor Jim Gibbons today called on Nevada’s Congressional delegation not to support Senator Harry Reid’s health care reform proposal currently being debated on the Senate Floor.
Under the Reid plan, a mandatory expansion of the Nevada Medicaid program would add more than 41,000 people to the program’s rolls in 2014, expanding Nevada’s Medicaid enrollment by nearly 60% by 2019. Overall, the Reid plan will cost Nevada taxpayers more than $613 million in state General Fund dollars between 2014 and 2019. In addition to imposing this massive tax burden, the bill also removes existing state options, essentially federalizing the program.
The proposal increases taxes on Nevada businesses and individuals directly through new taxes on existing health plans, an increase in Medicare payroll taxes, taxing Medicaid managed care plans, the elimination of the itemized medical expense deduction and more. Individuals will also be forced to fund the $1.7 billion federal Medicaid “cost share” through their federal income taxes. Estimates from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast premiums in the individual market will rise significantly faster than they would under current law. The bill would also grant the federal government a historic level of authority over the health care industry through dangerous levels of discretion granted to the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
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