health tax for Americans living abroad?

Does anyone know anything about this interesting topic in the current health care bill?
I received the following by email but don't know where to look for more info?
>>new Health Care Reform Bill as proposed by the US Senate contains a $750 per year Excise Tax per person for all US Citizens living outside the US.

The proposed law requires all US citizens regardless of country of residence to buy into one of the proposed US insurance plans or pay $750 per person per year Health Insurance Excise Tax.

The proposed US insurance plans will not cover medical expenses outside the US.
This will force us to pay for health insurance we cannot use.

A similar Health Care Bill has already been passed by the US House of Representatives.  However, in that bill, all US citizens residing abroad are exempt from the Excise Tax.  Unless we are exempted by both the House bill and the Senate bill, we could be taxed when the two bills are merged.

The Senate is currently debating its bill and is close to bringing to that bill to a vote.  We need to urge our Senators to exempt us from the Excise Tax in their bill.

From what I can see, this possibility is raised by only one organisation, the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI).  They are trying to make a big campaign out of it, and the story was picked up by a couple of Israeli newspapers, the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz.  There were stories in those papers on November 12, then nothing since.

It looks to me like the story is akin to that "Death Panels" story; a virtually baseless canard that is put out there to scare people and convince them that Healthcare Reform will be against the public interest & will cost folk more in taxes.

The AACI have an FAQ about the issue of Excise Tax payable as a penalty by those who don't have health insurance; they are encouraging people to write to their Congressional representatives.  The FAQ states

However, both bills do include an excise tax for non-participants.  The House bill exempts us from this tax, the Senate bill does not.  That is why we are bringing this issue to your attention and asking you to voice your concern to your Senators.

When it says, "The House Bill exempts us.."  they mean, "us" as in "US expats."  It seems fairly obvious that any eventual legislation will exempt folks who don't live in the US from the obligation to buy health insurance in the US, but I guess anything could happen...

Here is the AACI's page about the (supposed) issue.http://www.aaci.org.il/articlenav.php?id=163#qanda

Having done a little more research, this seems to be a big to-do about nothing (as I expected.)  Looking through the text of H.R.3962 Affordable Health Care for America Act (Placed on Calendar in Senate) there is specific language exempting US Citizens living abroad from the obligation to obtain coverage or pay the Excise tax.

It seems that the origin of the whole rumpus was an article in the WSJ on November 7, by Betsy McCaughey -- and she was the one who promoted the "death panels" canard.  It's odd; in some ways, the WSJ is a quality newspaper with some excellent content, in other ways it is no better than Fox News.

thanks! a lot of panic over nothing.

Thanks for the info. I'd seen the same thing from the ACA (American Citizens Abroad). Now I can go back to supporting the health care bills over there