Attention Joe and Jane Citizen! Concerned about the fiscal
future of your country and your family? Then please step away for
five minutes from the nonstop TV coverage of the Super Committee
breakdown, and get information about a matter much more important
to your country and your family’s prosperity.
You are being told that because the House-Senate Joint
Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, created last August as a
compromise in the debt ceiling fight, failed to reach a “solution”
by Thanksgiving, there will be dire consequences as government
spending has to be “sequestered” from the budget in 2013. But the
real worry you should have about 2013 is the permanent
sequestration of the money you can contribute to your flexible
spending account due to the stealth tax hikes of
Obamacare.
Back in 2010 when she was Speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy
Pelosi said Congress had to pass the health care bill into law, so
the public could know what’s in it. And it won’t be until the
beginning of 2013 that most of the public will know that one of the
things in the bill was a tax-free dollars that can be put aside for
medical expenses in a flex account to just $2,500 per year.
Especially for large families, this is in effect a marginal tax
hike on health expenses of as much as 40 percent!
The flex account limits is one of the gimmicky “revenue
enhancements” that allows Obamacare supporters to say it reduces
the deficit. Other accounting tricks include the now-repealed 1099
mandate, which required firms to report to send a form to the IRS
every time they bought a good or service valued at $600 or
more.
The “medicine
cabinet tax,” which went into effect earlier this year and
applies to both flex accounts and health savings accounts, puts in
the additional headache of getting a prescription for every
over-the-counter medicine bought with the account. But any
short-term tax savings will almost certainly end up resulting in
higher costs in the long run, as more patients needlessly visit the
doctor for OTC prescription or just buy more expensive prescription
medications.
But the flex attack that will begin in 2013, after the
next election, of course, will potentially be Obamacare’s most
devastating tax hike, or “revenue enhancement.” All families, no
matter their income or number of children, will be capped at
putting $2,500 in their flex accounts. However, it will hit those
families with disabled children the hardest.
“Families with special-needs children and people with
chronic illnesses stand to lose hundreds, if not thousands, of
dollars in tax benefits,”
reports FoxNews.com. The article notes that “policy groups
estimate that people with chronic illnesses face more than $4,000
annually in out-of-pocket expenses. Flex account money can go
toward that.”
The semi-good news is that depending on your and your
family’s needs, there are things you can do to minimize this hit.
But you have to take action in the next couple weeks, and plan your
2012 flex accounts accordingly.
Consider putting in higher than normal amounts in the flex
accounts for 2012, even doubling or tripling the amount. Then, to
the extent you can, get certain procedures done this year and pay
upfront for multiyear treatments such as your children’s braces
before the cap hits in 2013.
If you’re thinking about laser eye surgery, which often
isn’t covered by insurance, you have a strong case for getting it
done in 2012. If you know your kids are getting braces that they
will wear for two or three years, pay more of the cost upfront in
2012, before the $2,500 cap hits in 2013.
Your orthodontist or doctor’s office will usually be
cooperative in helping you take care of the costs earlier, and they
often like to get paid earlier, anyway. And remember, at the
beginning of the year, all of the flex deductions that will be
taken for the year are loaded onto your card. That means you can
use the card to for the entire year’s worth of your flex account
starting at the beginning of January, even though the amount is
deducted from your account paycheck-to-paycheck over twelve
months.
Even if you have some money left over in next year’s
account, you can use it for things like extra pairs of glasses. And
isn’t even ten pairs of glasses better than your money going into
federal coffers to fund bureaucracies such as Obamacare’s
Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), which have the
purpose of rationing your future care?!
You can also support legislation that repeals this tax
attack on flex accounts publicized on the website SaveMyFlexPlan.org.
So this Thanksgiving, enjoy your turkey and stuffing, give
thanks for living in the freest country on Earth, and resolve to
keep it that way. Don’t get taken in by the doom-and-gloom news
reports of the Super Committee’s failure to, as Matt Patterson put
it here
on OpenMarket, put a Dixie cup of water on the bloated government
fire. Instead, focus on slaying the real dragons like Obamacare,
and while they are here, shielding your family from them as best
you can.
For your country and your family’s sake, don’t give a dime
more of your tax dollars to the edifice of Obamacare than you are
legally required to.
(Since individual circumstances vary, please consult
your tax or financial adviser on the personal recommendations in
this column.)
