It is important to point out that the proposed tax on high cost health insurance policies only applies to the amount over the cutoff. This means that if a plan costs $24,500, or $500 more than the new cutoff of $24,000 for a family plan, then the 40 percent tax would be applied to the $500, not the full $24,500. This means that a person would pay $200 in tax on this policy. This fact would probably not be clear to most readers of this Post article.

–Dean Baker

Dean Baker is senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He is the author of several books, including Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer. Read more about Dean.