"president could support taxing some employee health benefits"
He's taxing my health, readers, and I don't even have employer coverage.
And NOT ONLY THAT; the Congress is going to SHIELD the RICH with TAX BREAKS!!
"Obama's own idea for raising revenues for healthcare - limiting the income tax deductions that the most affluent taxpayers claim - has run into opposition [from DEMOCRATS]"
Looks like your first visit will be to the proctologist, 'eh, Amurkn?
You know, if the plan can't be like what I saw in Sicko, then I don't want it.
"White House signals openness to taxing workers' health benefits" by Jackie Calmes and Robert Pear, New York Times | March 15, 2009
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for an overhaul of the healthcare system.
The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as "the largest middle-class tax increase in history." Most Americans with insurance get it from their employers, and taxing workers for the benefit is strongly opposed by union leaders and some businesses.
Actually, I'm becoming immune to his broken promises and lies.
I expect them, so....
In millions of dollars worth of television advertisements last fall, Obama criticized his Republican rival for the presidency, Senator John McCain of Arizona, for proposing to tax all employer-provided health benefits. The benefits have long been tax-free, regardless of how generous they are or how much an employee earns. The ads did not note that McCain, in exchange, wanted to give all families a tax credit to subsidize the purchase of coverage.
At the time, even some Obama supporters said privately that he might come to regret his position if he won the election; in effect, they said, he was potentially giving up an important option to help finance his ambitious healthcare agenda to reduce medical costs and expand coverage to the 46 million Americans who are uninsured. Now that Obama has begun the health debate, several advisers say that while he will not propose changing the tax-free status of employee health benefits, neither will he oppose it if Congress does so.
At a recent congressional hearing, Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, whose own health plan would make benefits taxable, asked Peter R. Orszag, Obama's budget director, about the issue. Orszag replied that it "most firmly should remain on the table."
Orszag, an economist who previously was director of the Congressional Budget Office, has written favorably of taxing some employer-provided health benefits and using the revenue savings for other health-related incentives.
TAXING US MORE is NOT SAVINGS, lying MSM!! God!!!!
So has another Obama adviser, Jason Furman, the deputy director of the White House National Economic Council. They, like other proponents, cite evidence that tax-free benefits encourage what McCain called "gold-plated" policies, inefficient and costly demands for healthcare as a result, and pressure on employers to hold down workers' pay as insurance expenses rise.
Oh, you mean like the HEALTH PLAN CONGESS GAVE THEMSELVES at TAXPAYER EXPENSE -- as they DENY US UNIVERSAL CARE?!!
And, they say, the policy discriminates against those - mostly low-income workers - who do not have employer-provided coverage.
Hey, they are used to it, right?
When Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, advocated taxing benefits at a recent hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, which he heads, Timothy F. Geithner, Obama's secretary of the Treasury, assured him that the administration was open to all ideas from Congress. Geithner did allude, however, to the stand Obama had taken as a candidate.
The administration's receptivity to the idea is partly due to the advocacy of Baucus, whose committee has jurisdiction over tax policy and health programs, and to support from Republicans. Also, Obama's own idea for raising revenues for healthcare - limiting the income tax deductions that the most affluent taxpayers claim - has run into opposition not only from Baucus but from his House counterpart, Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, Ways and Means Committee head.
Obama's proposed limit on deductions would raise an estimated $318 billion over 10 years, or half of his proposed "healthcare reserve fund." That is a fraction of the revenues that could be raised from taxing employer-provided health benefits.
Yeah, surel the pro-richer paper says don't take our tax breaks away, take MORE TAXES from the WORKING GUY!! What a SCAM!!!!!!
McCain estimated in the campaign that taxing all health benefits would raise $3.6 trillion over a decade - "a multitrillion-dollar tax hike," one Obama advertisement said. The Congressional Budget Office says that including health benefits in taxable income could mean $246 billion in additional revenues for a single year. Stopping short of full taxation, as Baucus and others suggest, would of course mean fewer new revenues.
Oh, the POLITICIANS must be SALIVATING at the THOUGHT of that PILE of TAXPAYER DOUGH, huh?
The latest government figures, for 2007, show that 70 percent of the 253 million people with health insurance - 177 million people - got at least some of their coverage through employers. Employment-based insurance covers three-fifths of the population under 65.
SINGLE-PAYER, UNIVERSAL COVERAGE or BUST!!!!!
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Let the BATTLE BEGIN!
"Democrats, GOP draw battle lines on healthcare plan" by Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | March 15, 2009
WASHINGTON - Democrats and Republicans are battling over what is shaping up to be one of the most contentious issues in the healthcare debate: whether the government should establish a Medicare-style public insurance option for people under 65....
F*** the HALF-MEASURES!!!!
Meanwhile, top Republican senators declared in a letter to President Obama last week that they would oppose any healthcare bill with a public plan because it would force insurers to compete on an "unlevel playing field" with the government, which could theoretically set artificially low prices and subsidize any shortfalls with taxpayers' money....
But the PRICK Repuglicans don't mind that when it is a WAR or BANK getting the $$$$!
Interest groups have begun digging in. Conservatives, the insurance industry, and the small business lobby regard a public insurance plan as anathema, contending that it would drive private insurers out of business, leading to a Canadian-style single-payer plan.
Liberal groups and unions passionately support it, saying it would offer a plan with much lower administrative costs and greater stability, and could help drive systemwide innovations, such as the implementation of electronic health records.
Yeah, right, that is going to solve all the cost problems. Why must liberals be so damn naive?
Bryan Dowd, a health policy professor at the University of Minnesota, said for years Democrats and many Republicans have succumbed to political pressure to keep the public plan premiums lower through subsidies, contributing to huge government cost overruns. In addition, Republicans and many Democrats voted to provide subsidies to private insurers in certain parts of the country to help them provide better benefits. Obama has provoked an outcry from insurers by proposing to dramatically lower those extra payments....
James Roosevelt Jr., the president and chief executive of Tufts Health Plan, said the Massachusetts system offers a glimpse of how private insurers could accomplish most of the goals of having a public plan: The federal government could set criteria for a basic benefits package, make it available to anyone in the country, and forbid insurers from discrimination against the sick while requiring everyone to buy insurance.
Take it from SOMEONE WHO KNOWS; you DO NOT WANT OUR SYSTEM!!!
See: Why the Nation Doesn't Need Massachusetts Health Care
Massachusetts Health Care Takes a Seat on the S***ter
The Massachusetts Model
Insurers would design new products, tailored to the government's criteria, and compete for customers, who would have stable and affordable insurance no matter where they lived.
And GOUGE the CRAP OUT OF YOU, too!!!!
But many public-plan proponents say the Massachusetts law enriches insurers at the expense of middle-class people who cannot afford the insurance but are forced to buy it anyway....
YUP!!!! Strange how that is of much concern to the agenda-pushing Boston Globe, 'eh?
A bill is not expected until late spring....
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