HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Taxes associated with the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act will cost Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Alabama about $600 million over the next three years, according to U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks.

Speaking at a town hall meeting Monday night at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Brooks dropped that number on an audience of about 110 people as the national healthcare law known as Obamacare took a beating from both Brooks and members of the audience.

And those taxes, Brooks said, will filter down to policyholders throughout the state.

"I had a meeting with Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Alabama," Brooks said. "There are 21 different tax increases in the government healthcare bill that help provide the money for these (healthcare) subsidies. Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Alabama told me they're going to have to pay $600 million more in taxes because of the government healthcare over the next three years.

"Where are they going to get the money? That means they have to increase your premiums. I don't know if they were telling me the straight scoop but I know that's what they told me and my staff and I have no reason not to believe them. You can expect your premiums to go up because of that."

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Alabama recently informed 87,000 holders of individual policies (about 4 percent of BCBS customers) that their plans will no longer be available after Dec. 31.



While Brooks spent the opening 30 minutes of the meeting reiterating his familiar message of the threat the nation faces from the national debt, the Q&A session tilted toward the new healthcare law that went into effect Oct. 1.

One retiree told Brooks his individual insurance premiums jumped from $200 a month to $750 a month for both him and his wife because of the healthcare law.

"I feel helpless about it," the man said.

As the man finished his comments blasting the healthcare law and the debt, Brooks immediately fired back, "I agree with everything you said" and the audience applauded.

Beyond that, though, Brooks said there wasn't much more he could say. Brooks said there are "consequences" to elections - alluding to the elections that brought to power those who support the healthcare law.

"And they will die on their sword before they let anybody change it," Brooks said. "You either have to change the people who are there or you have to figure a way to work with it. I wish I could give you a more optimistic assessment."

Brooks pointed out that the House has voted more than 40 times to repeal the healthcare law or make substantive changes to it but the Senate refuses to bring it up for a vote. President Obama would veto any Congressional move to stop the law anyway, Brooks said.

The story the man told, Brooks said, was a familiar one.

"I hear that story from hundreds of people - hundreds," he said. "You magnify it nationally, it's in the millions who are in the position that you're in after a president knowingly told the American people that if you like your insurance, you will be able to keep it and if you like your doctor you can keep it and, better yet, it will cost you less. And none of that was true."

Brooks said he would continue to oppose the healthcare law, no matter how fruitless it might appear to be.

"I'm going to fight it as long as I believe it's going to harm the healthcare of American citizens," he said. "That's what I believe. It is the law right now and remember also, for roughly 100 years, separate but equal was also the law. Aren't we glad people continued to fight the separate but equal doctrine? Aren't we glad people stuck to their guns and kept fighting?"

Mandating healthcare insurance is a step in the wrong direction for the government, Brooks said.

"The more the government gets into this healthcare stuff, the more they mess it up," he said. "And the more they make it more and more expensive. I wish it wasn't this way.

"This is a commercial endeavor. I don't think the government has any business telling us what goods we have to buy. I just don't think that's their place."