How the healthcare bill would work
The House healthcare bill would impose a new tax on businesses that don't provide health insurance to their employees. It also would eliminate the payments that businesses offering coverage make now, either through a surcharge built into their premiums or directly to the state. Currently, those payments go into a ''Free Care Pool" to help the state cover the cost of caring for the uninsured.
Here's one example: If a business's payroll is $1.2 million and it spends $120,000, or 10 percent of its payroll, on health insurance, that business would not have to pay the payroll tax.
Here's one example: A small firm with three workers making $45,000, four making $80,000, four making $120,000, and two earning $160,000 has a total payroll of $1,255,000. Five percent of that total is $62,750. If health insurance is costing the company $4,000 per worker, its healthcare costs would total $52,000. The firm would owe the difference, $10,750, in payroll taxes, under an earlier version of the bill. But if salaries were capped at $94,200 for purposes of the calculation, total payroll is only $1,019,400. Five percent of that figure is $50,970. Since the company's healthcare costs are higher than 5-percent of the payroll, the company would not owe the new payroll tax.
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