Obamacare could cost you $4,000 a year If the public insurance option is dropped, that's likely

08-20-2009 • CNN

(Someone has to PAY for those back room drug meetings!) The conclusion is shocking. Middle- and upper-middle class Americans could face an enormous increase in their premiums. The hit could easily approach $4,000 for someone earning less than $90,000 -- or more than double that increase as soon as the worker's pay hits six figures. That's because Obama's plan would collect hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes at the expense of medium earners, and re-channel the money into subsidies for the uninsured, low-income earners, and union retirees over age 55. And those big new taxes would pay for gold-plated plans that would become required coverage for everyone, whether they like it or not. "This is a tax game designed to squeeze money out of the middle class," says Joseph Antos, a health-care economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

You are free to comment on this discussion in any way you feel is appropriate. If you choose to use to use any language which our editors feel is vulgar -- by their standards -- your comment may be tagged "Crude or Lewd" and may be filtered out of the discussion by those who prefer not to read that sort of thing. If you know you have entered something which will cause your comment to be tagged, we ask that you tag it yourself to save us the time. We do encourage everyone to be civil and not make rude attacks on other people in the Forum. We don't censor out those remarks, but few people enjoy reading them and we would like participation in our Forums to be a pleasant experience for everyone. And, by concentrating on what is said instead of who is saying it, even those who may disagree with you will be more likely to consider your opinions valid.

Thank you for your cooperation!