Democrat healthcare plan raises taxes on special needs children

  (Photo:  WikiMedia Commons)

Now that people have had an opportunity to read some of the 2000-odd pages in the Democrats’ health care bill being debated this week in the Senate, the morally objectionable provisions just seem to be multiplying. Taxpayers will be forced to pay for abortions, individuals and small businesses which decline to participate in the governmentally-forced insurance scheme will be subjected to draconian fines and imprisonment, Medicare funding will be slashed by 50%, and medical services will be rationed on the basis of a cost/benefit analysis.

And, it all that is not enough to shock your conscience, it now appears that Harry Reid’s new Senate health care bill will increase taxes on the parents of special needs children.

Ryan Ellis of Americans for Tax Reform, speaking at LifeNews.com, notes that the bill contains 18 separate tax increases — one of them targeting parents of disabled children. “One of them caps the amount that can be deferred in Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) at $2500 per year (a similar provision was included in the Pelosi-Obama health bill),” Ellis notes. “There is currently no limit to how much can be saved, though all monies must be used by the end of the year. Employers may put a cap in place for their employees, but this would put a cap in federal tax law for the first time. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), 30 million American families use an FSA,” he explained.

  Senator Harry Reid (WikiMedia Commons)

Most Americans won't notice a $2,500 cap as FSAs tend to be used for things like small deductibles, co-payments, eyeglasses, over-the-counter medicines, and laser eye surgery. But parents of special needs children will, says Ellis. "There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly-cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children," he said. "There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year," Ellis added.

Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com Editor, notes that IRS Publication 502, Medical Expenses, explains how, under current tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. "You can include in medical expenses fees you pay on a doctor's recommendation for a child's tutoring by a teacher who is specially trained and qualified to work with children who have learning disabilities caused by mental or physical impairments, including nervous system disorders," the guide notes.

  (Photo:  WikiMedia Commons)

"You can include in medical expenses the cost (tuition, meals, and lodging) of attending a school that furnishes special education to help a child to overcome learning disabilities," the IRS adds. "Overcoming the learning disabilities must be a principal reason for attending the school, and any ordinary education received must be incidental to the special education provided. Special education includes teaching Braille to a visually impaired person; teaching lip reading to a hearing-impaired person, or giving remedial language training to correct a condition caused by a birth defect,' the guide adds.

If Ellis' analysis is correct, the unborn and the disabled are further victimized under a bill that is already fraught with concerns over abortion, rationing and the promotion of assisted suicide.  Any senator voting for this farrago of moral depravity deserves the animadversion and malediction of all moral and honorable citizens.

Learn more:  Louisville Economic Policy Examiner Rob Binsrick's article, Democrats Against Healthcare Freedom

Read it, if you dare:  Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2074 pages, .pdf)

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