House Votes to Repeal Obamacare Tax Once Seen as Key to Health Law — NYT 🔗 👩‍⚕️ 👨‍⚕️ 🏥 🇺🇸 💵 🗳

In the heat of the legislative fight over the Affordable Care Act, Obama administration officials argued that including a steep tax on high-cost, generous health insurance plans was critical to the law because it would hold down soaring costs while helping to pay for its expanded health benefits. On Wednesday, that feature, once considered central to Obamacare, was dealt a blow by an unlikely foe: Democrats. The House voted almost unanimously to repeal the tax, which was intended to prompt employers to rein in such costly plans and force employees to spend more of their own money on their care. It was expected to be a key cost-containment provision in President Barack Obama’s signature health law and one of the main ways it was supposed to pay for itself. It was not to go into effect until 2022, but the unions never liked it, nor did business groups or Republicans. So with neither party showing much concern for the government’s rising tide of red ink, the House moved to permanently block the tax from taking effect — and balloon deficits by nearly $200 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.