You can tax my health benefits too
By John Amato Friday Jul 10, 2009 5:45amI don't understand what the problem with this is: Yeah, Obama attacked John McCain for threatening to eliminate the tax exclusion for group health insurance, and of course the Villagers are calling President Obama a hypocrite because it's being tossed in as part of the health-care reform discussion, but the most excellent Jonathan Cohn at TNR explains the difference between the two:
But one of the worst kept secrets in Washington these days is that Obama and his advisers are willing to consider the idea of, you guessed it, taxing your health benefits. At least some of the time. For some of the people. To be clear, such a move would happen in the context of an entirely different health reform proposal than McCain was suggesting. McCain's plan would have undermined employer-sponsored insurance and forced large numbers of people to purchase insurance as individuals through an unregulated market, where it can be incredibly tough to buy decent coverage.
Obama's reforms, if executed properly, would make good coverage available to everybody. And they'd still leave in place most employer-sponsored insurance. Changing the tax treatment of health benefits would simply provide a nice way of financing these reforms.
John McCain would have destroyed any chance at health reform, and if this is what it takes, I don't see what the problem is. I make under the 250K, but I'll gladly pay more taxes to help pay for health-care reform. Hell, my private insurance is up to over eight hundred dollars a month now and it only covers me.
Login or Register to post comments.
a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged should be replaced by
a liberal is a conservative who has been mugged by insurance companies.
it is still eerie to watch our slow, but deliberate descent into the hell hole described in Atlas Shrugged.
Actually, this was the only good thing that might have come out of his election. Had he gotten his way on taxing these benefits, the system would have imploded and HC would have been delinked from employment.
Not the way you want to get there, but I wonder if it would have gotten us to single payer or a social health inurance model sooner, through crisis!
"When there's blood in the streets, there's money to be made"?
I think that the "crisis opportunity" you are thinking of probably would have benefitted those already in a position to manipulate the system - and, as usual, that wouldn't have been us.
That giant sucking sound . . . .
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2009/5...
Dear poster, I'm not saying you don't have a point here BUT... please identify what screen that was. Was it the consumer price index? Was it purchasing power parity? What was the name of the index? I can't identify it from the mnemonic.
If it's purchasing power, it's basically closely linked to the consumer price index, a measure of inflation. Inflation, in small amounts, can actually be a very good thing. Our hero Krugman has written as much. -The key being that inflation must be offset by wage growth.
So your graph is interesting but please identify it further. And then we'll analyze it.
being greedy, arrogant, corrupt bastards, just because they lost the White House.
And I knew they wouldn't quit stealing everything not nailed down until they're forced to.
But I am still surprised at how much they really don't give a flying rat's ass about how much damage they do, how much pain they cause, to the rest of us.
They've got theirs, we can all go to hell.
And, unfortunately, until we grow some cahones at least as big as the people of Tehran are showing right now, this will not stop.
They will not give up until they are forced to, and if we have to watch our loved ones die unnecessarily in the meantime, so what?
They've got theirs - and we pay for it.
... McCain's credibility is zero. Here's a guy who divorced his first wife - who waited for him while he was a POW - in order to take up with a millionaire-heiress wife.
We're truly getting what we pay for - we elect rich sociopaths to office, and we get policies befitting rich sociopaths.
Maybe it's time to start electing people who have actually worked for a living, who know what it is to struggle to pay a mortgage, who have to worry about not having enough to pay for medical bills if a child is injured, and so on. Give us doctors who care about making people well, teachers who care about educating students and equipping them to face challenges in the real world (as opposed to Bible-thumping loons).
Change isn't coming from the top down anymore than Reagan's 'trickle-down' economy works.
not trickle down.
;-)
McCain will be one of the guests on Meet the Press, Sunday. Why? I have no idea.
audience about a subject on which both are woefully uninformed.
Quick question: How many times was John Kerry on Meet the Press in 2005?
... and McCain can play president in exile. Just you watch... (maybe you can watch, because I don't have the stomach for it anymore).
as depression era entertainment. So far Obama's played Lincoln, Reagan, JFK and FDR and produced booming unemployment, a tanking economy, and out of control deficit spending on behalf of the very same corporations and causes they once postured against.
Nothing like confidence
Sorry John, major problem here!
We have not had a raise in 10 of the last 15 years in order to keep our health insurance. The other five years our average raise was 1.2%.
Until they start taxing the rich bastards and take back the 25% of total wealth they stole from the rest of us through the idiotic GOP tax laws, they can stuff this idea.
Almost everyone I know has seen their wages cut (if they still have a job). No, no, no, there should be absolutely no talk of taxes unless the rich get gouged first! 94% marginal rates baby! That will stop the theivery.
WTF? No, and hell no. I'm lucky to be employed at a 76% FTE rate and I'm lucky to have health insurance. You want me to be boned for more taxes from my already meager "1/2 step ahead of the homeless motherfucker and 2 weeks away from the mission" wages?! I can barely pay my bills as is and I'm doing my part to stay out of trouble and commit no crime. Don't push me! Tax my health benefits my ass!
everything i'm hearing about "health care reform" is so vague. before talking about taxing or not, maybe explain the proposal more clearly. just read that second paragraph from Cohn...its 3 sentences of nothing.
IS CUT THE PENTAGON'S FREAKIN' NOSE OFF!!!!
Jeebus H. Christ!!!
The Pentagon (Military Industrial Complex/Private Mercenaries - "Xe" - "Triple Canopy"/Halliburtan/Northrup/Hughes/ etc.), need to be told that THEIR BUDGET IS GETTING SLASHED TO PAY FOR NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE.
Declare victory in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan and bring the troops/drones home.
IT'S TIME TO CASH IN ON THE "PEACE DIVIDEND" WE NEVER GOT.
Taxes....enough already!!!
Congress needs to be told to make better use of what they already have and for the betterment of the American People.
The MIC budget isn't helping us one bit. It's hurting us in every possible way, including BLOWBACK because our military aggressiveness is making the whole world HATE US!!
From one perspective that may be true, but from another not.
Since Obama chose to forgo trying to get a single-payer system, and instead rely on employer-based insurance to maintain the core of our overall health care system, he may well be delaying the introduction of single-payer. McCain's approach may have ended the primacy of employer-based insurance, but it could have created a short term disaster for countless people thrown out of work-related insurance. That might have ratcheted up the demand for single-payer and set the stage for that transition after a Democrat won the presidency in 2012 (as long as it wasn't another timid Democrat afraid to lead and satisfied to try to patch the unsalvageable mess that we have now or that would have been created by McCain's "reforms").
From my perspective, we need a single-payer system. The sooner we get one, the better. Since Obama's approach is likely to delay the introduction of single-payer -- unless there is no public option and reform fails miserably -- it is possible that for those who can survive until after 2012 and not suffer major health problems in the meantime, McCain's approach could have been better, since it would have put the final nail in the coffin of private insurance and helped create the demand for single-payer.
Of course, there would be casualties under the McCain path (me, for example), but in the long run it might have moved us closer to real reform, by moving us away from it. Most Americans are still not behaving like genuine health care reform is vitally important.
One thing is certain -- taking single-payer off the table (even as a bargaining position) and signaling repeatedly that you're willing to compromise away vital parts of reform, as Obama is doing, is probably not the best way to get as much as possible out of this year's efforts. That could mean a very bad trade-off. However, if Obama gives away the farm for a little more support from moderates (which actually will mean getting the support of more Democrats, rather than attracting a bunch of Republicans), in the end his way may conceivably turn out worse than McCain's.
Since we don't know what the final bill will look like, it's all speculation at this point, but I'm not confident of a favorable outcome.
I will never forget one of McCain's spokesmen saying "We need to stop saying that X million people in this country don't have healthcare. Anyone can walk into an emergency room and by law they have to treat them regardless of their ability to pay."
That's so true. Since they don't have regular docs, they wait til they're real poorly, then they go.
"...by law they have to treat them..." even if the patient dies waiting for help. I went to the ER last month, and left after 5 hours. I was too ill to wait any longer. Why? Because of people like I was, 8 years ago, almost to the day, who have to wait for their cancer diagnosis until it's nearly too late.
Did you know that the rate of ER cancer diagnoses has skyrocketed over the last decade or so? It has become THE WAY for poor and working poor to find out they're gonna die from cancer...
Not everyone who has medical insurance from their job pays a great deal for it. Many pay $800/mo and then on top of that, their employer pays another grand. You'd pay taxes on that grand even though you'd never see it. It could raise your taxable income by a significant amount. I don't think people here are thinking how much that could be and what it could mean.
A family of four paying 40% (the average employee share) of $12K/yr the average for group health insurance would have an increase in taxable income of over $7200. If they make the median income of about $67K and take the standard deduction and exemptions for 2009, they have a taxable income of $41K with a total tax of $3315 ($5315 - $2000 child tax credit). An extra $7200 in phantom income is a 17.5% increase in taxable income resulting in a tax bill of $4395, an increase of 32.5%. Are you ready for your taxes to go up 33%? Drop the gross income to the very middle class $56K and the taxes go up a whopping 64%! Plus, many state tax formulas are based on the Federal AGI. Brace yourself for a huge bump in your state tax as well.
Military families like mine could conceivably incur a substantial tax burden because our excellent medical care could add as much as 50% in phantom "income" were it taxed because we have good, "free" medical, low salaries and low taxable income. I don't even want to THINK about that calculation.
I'm not sure that punishing people for happening to have good medical care is a great answer. I don't know what the answer is, though. I do think that no one should be supporting anything without knowing what exactly that policy means to them.
I want the same health care plans they receive in the House and Senate. If it's good enough for them, why not for us?
The House and Senate has never suffered from not being able to pay a medical bill, not being able to afford a prescription, not being able to pay the high premium costs for health care if you can qualify, and not being able to pick and choose your doctor. Have they really listened to people who can't get insurance??? It's ok for you but not ok for your constituents huh.How hard is it to follow the money and see who is benefiting from this corrupt health care system we have now. More double talk.
Take away the Congressional Health care plan and make them suffer like almost half of Americans. I bet they would make some major changes then…
what we call "benefits" it is referred to as "minimum baseline" in the rest of the industrialized world.
In the same sense that what the GOP (and some Dems have started to use the same terminology) calls "entitlements" are usually described as "social rights" in those same countries.
It is subtle, but the language used is quite telling.
It is truly Orwellian if you come to think of it...
Orwellean on steroids.
"performance enhancing supplements" in keeping with the whole Orwellian meme ;-)
This option was thrown around and summarily rejected. My understanding is that the unions fought this vehemently. I believe this was covered recently on NPR's All Things Considered, if I remember correctly.
Included in the NPR piece was information regarding what employers are contributing toward health insurance now as compared to before September 2008.
I recall that there was some discussion that many employers who were paying 100% of employee benefits (health, dental, vision) are now paying below 100%, down to even 25%, leaving the remaining 75% to be paid by the employee. This does not include dependent coverage, which is not always covered 100% anyway. The reason given was the economy (reduction in revenues/profits) and an alternative to laying off employees or additional employees.
So the taxation of benefits is not that simple, because in some cases a good portion of the benefits are now being paid for by the employee; there wouldn't be much of an employer portion to tax.
So, the US spends about 15% of GDP on health care and most industrialized spend less than 10% of GDP. We spend double per capita compared to other industrialized nations and we don't cover everyone. The public option is going to cost billions more from our gov't and it won't cover everyone. So, in order to fix an incredibly inefficient "health care system" the Obama answer is to spend more money? It is not the amount of money we spend on health care; it is the way it is spent. THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM IS TO CUT OUT THE INEFFICIENT INSURANCE COMPANIES. The single payer will do that.
Most people would pay less under a single, some the same, and few others more, but we don't need to raise everyone's taxes for a single payer system. By removing the insurance companies, we can use the savings from the administrative costs associated with the insurance companies to give insurance to the uninsured. We can cover everyone spending aggregately what we spend now.
...MONEY THAT'S GOING TO AN INSURANCE COMPANY? ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY?
Login or Register to post comments.