Liberal insanity on display: How does adding a tax to something you want to expand work? Democrats solution to everything is to raise taxes.

Cuomo’s new budget calls for tax on health-insurance policies

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s new budget includes a nearly $69 million tax on health-insurance policies to pay for the administrative costs of continuing New York’s ObamaCare health exchange, The Post has learned.

The levy is intended to make up for federal funds no longer available to the states as of this year. Adding up to about $25 per person insured under the plan, the cost is almost certainly going to be passed on to consumers.

The tax is being called a bait-and-switch by opponents of Cuomo’s decision to start a state-run ObamaCare health exchange in New York. Had he not done so, they argue, there would have been no need for the tax.

“There was no indication that there would be a new tax to pay for this. We had plenty of debate on ObamaCare. I never heard this mentioned,” said Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin (R-Troy).

The Affordable Care Act requires that state-based health benefit exchanges be self-sustainable beginning this year after they got federal seed money to launch.

Cuomo created NY State of Health, an online marketplace to shop for health plans, in 2013.

The move was controversial, as Cuomo made it by executive order rather than with legislation.

A majority of states — almost all with Republican governors — refused to set up exchanges because they opposed ObamaCare. The federal government runs the program in those states.

New York is one of 16 states that set up their own Web-based exchange, believing they could manage the health-insurance program better than the feds. Now only the states that implemented their own exchanges will be responsible for raising funds to manage them.

Despite the increase, the Cuomo administration said New York’s implementation of ObamaCare has been a success.

“The health plans offered through NY State of Health are, on average, 50 percent less expensive than those available in 2013 prior to the creation of the marketplace, and over 1.9 million New Yorkers have enrolled in coverage,” said Cuomo budget spokesman Morris Peters.

Peters called the per-person tax on health plans “modest.”

But the lobbying arm for health insurers insisted it would lead to more costly premiums.

“The governor proposes to add a new tax on premiums to pay for New York’s health exchange, making health insurance less affordable for New Yorkers,’’ said Paul Macielak, CEO of the New York Health Plan Association.

“If affordable health-care coverage is the goal here in New York, the new ‘exchange tax’ should be dropped and the existing state taxes on health insurance, which today total more than $5 billion and amounted to 5 percent of premiums, should be reduced.”

There are nearly 1 million newly insured New Yorkers.