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Almost no business in the real world still follows this old-fashioned practice as both medicine and medical billing have become more complex. The major exception is a certain type of collectively bargained insurance trust known as Taft-Hartley plans. Such insurance covers about 20 million union members, and four out of five Taft-Hartley trusts are self-administered.
There’s no conceivable rationale—other than politics—for releasing union-only plans from a tax that is defined as universal in the Affordable Care Act statute. Like so many other ObamaCare waivers, this labor dispensation will probably turn out to be illegal.
And by the way, this favor harms all other taxpayers. The IRS assesses the reinsurance tax in annual tranches; it must collect $12 billion in 2014, $8 billion in 2015 and $5 billion 2016. So the smaller pool of ordinary people without a union card will pay a larger individual share of the same overall amount.
Count all of this as one more illustration of the way that ObamaCare has put politicians in control of health care. Some people get taxed but others don’t, some people get subsidies but others don’t, and some have to pay more so Mr. Obama can deliver favors to his political constituents.