No tax on workers' health benefits

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090709/OPINION03/907090341/No-tax-on-workers--health-benefits

Thursday, July 9, 2009
James P. Hoffa: WASHINGTON, D.C.

Detroit, we have a problem. We're suffering serious economic pain at a time when health care costs in our state are going through the roof. The one million Michiganians who don't have health insurance are one accident or one serious illness away from financial catastrophe.

It's well past time for that to change. Fortunately, Congress is finally beginning to grapple with a way to give all U.S. citizens access to affordable health insurance.

Unions support affordable health care for all, as do most Americans.

The problem is how to pay for it.

Max Baucus of Montana, the powerful chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is suggesting an enormous new tax on employer-sponsored health insurance.

Many Americans, including those who have employer-provided coverage, believe a public, government-sponsored plan is a sensible way to make health insurance available to all -- including people who can't get it through their employer and who don't qualify for Medicaid or Medicare. But a tax hike on health benefits to pay for a public plan would be a poison pill for middle-class wage-earners to swallow.

Most Americans are deeply offended by the prospect of such a tax. A recent national survey by Lake Research Partners shows 80 percent of likely voters oppose taxing health benefits.

FULL story at link.

[napi21]

1. The way I understand this HC tax was that it would only be on

those whose benefits exceeded the avg, and the tax would only be on the amount over the average. ie: If the average cost of the HC benefit was $15,000 a year, and yours was $20,000, you would be taxed on $5,000. The actual ins costs I'm familiar with don't come close to being that high, and the tax would be on those higher paid individuals (usually executives) who actually get more than the average. I guess I'm trying to figure out just why so many DUers are against this?