Washington, DC – Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) commented on today’s analysis released by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimating that, in 2016, 70 percent of the 5.9 million American taxpayers who will be forced to pay the Democrats’ new tax for not buying government-approved health insurance will have incomes that are low enough to qualify for ObamaCare premium subsidies.  

“The bad news and broken promises from ObamaCare just keep piling up,” said Camp.  “The bulk of the law hasn’t even gone into effect yet and already the nonpartisan CBO is increasing its predictions as to how many middle-class and low-income Americans will see their taxes increase because of ObamaCare.  This is yet another example of why we need to repeal this law and replace it with a bill that not only lowers health insurance premiums but does so without raising taxes.”

CBO’s new estimate represents a 51 percent increase in the number of American taxpayers that will be forced to pay this new tax compared to CBO’s 2010 estimate (5.9 million versus 3.9 million, respectively).  Making matters worse, CBO now expects that those earning less than 400 percent of poverty will shoulder an even larger burden of those paying the new tax compared to its previous estimate (70 percent versus 64 percent, respectively).

CBO estimates that in 2016, 4.1 million taxpayers with income less than 400 percent of poverty level ($98,400 for a family of four in 2016) will pay roughly $2.4 billion in taxes as a result of the health care law’s individual mandate tax.  That works out to an average of roughly $585 in new taxes per taxpayer in 2016 for the health care mandate alone.  Overall, CBO predicts the individual mandate tax to raise more than $60 billion in revenue over the next ten years, compared to its previous estimate of roughly $30 billion, a staggering 100 percent increase.