Bush Plots Health-Care Push

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

January 16, 2007

Bush Plots Health-Care Push
Employer-Plan Tax Change May Aid Coverage for the Needy
By JOHN D. MCKINNON and DEBORAH SOLOMON
January 16, 2007; Page A6

WASHINGTON -- With health-care costs emerging as one of voters' biggest domestic concerns, President Bush is considering promoting a tax-code change making it easier for people to buy health insurance for themselves in the open market, rather than relying on employers. The president's coming State of the Union address and annual budget proposal are likely to include other ideas for easing the crunch, Republicans close to the White House said. Those would build on the administration's efforts to encourage states to create special insurance pools for lower-income individuals and small businesses. The administration also is likely to make another push for expanding health savings accounts. The accounts, first authorized in 2003, allow people to save tax-free for health-care needs provided they choose low-cost, high-deductible coverage.

(snip)

Currently, health-care benefits aren't subject to federal income tax, no matter how generous the benefit -- a factor many economists have said has contributed to health-care inflation. The Bush administration is considering a change that would tax some executives' "gold-plated" plans and possibly even affect some rank-and-file union members with particularly generous benefits. The savings would be used to pay for tax credits for lower-income people who buy their own health insurance or for state insurance pools, or both. The effect could be relatively small now but could grow over time.

The current policy of excluding employer-provided health insurance benefits from employees' tax returns costs the government more than any other tax policy -- about $900 billion between 2006 and 2010, counting all health-related breaks. That is more than either the mortgage-interest deduction or the various breaks for retirement savings. Thus, even tinkering around the edges of the exclusion could produce large amounts of revenue for subsidizing coverage for lower-income people.

Some of the administration's possible proposals, particularly the changes to the tax code, are likely to meet resistance from Democrats, who worry about further undermining the market for employer-provided coverage and driving up costs for those who remain in the system.

(snip)

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116891100123377204.html (subscription)

[global1]

1. Is * Serious About This Or Is This Just A Tactic For The Upcoming SOTU Address He.....

will be making soon. Sounds to me that this is just a way that he doesn't have to dwell on the screw-up in the M.E. and he wants to turn the topic over to domestic issues to get the heat off of him.

[Warpy]

2. Tax credit? HAHA!

It would have to be a tax GIVEAWAY for most of us who are older boomers. We've managed to develop enough chronic illness by our early 50s that we are uninsurable except as high risk clients of BC/BS. My last check turned up premiums over $1000/month, and don't try to tell me any tax cut is going to cover THAT plus the 20% of my bills that would still be out of pocket.

These Republic assholes all think we're plutocrats paying over $100,000/year in taxes for whom a tax credit probably would buy insurance. For those of us who live in the real world of being underpaid and going into debt just to bring shit pay up to subsistence it's just another cruel joke from the GOP.

They are completely out of ideas. They need to be gone now, and I don't care how.

[question everything]

3. Tax credit would be OK if all expenses could be claimed

not the ones that exceed 7.5% of gross adjusted income.

This is the problem with sticking with employer-paying insurance. They get to deduct all premium as business expenses while we have to incur really large amount before we can deduct some of it.

[Warpy]

7. OK, you're suddenly an older boomer who's been

declared too old and shabby to keep around in the decent job you had at McCorporation, and have accepted the fact that your income will be from a patchwork of low paid, dead end jobs until you are old enough to get social security--if it's still there. Your income is about $23,000/year and you're able to meet expenses because you bought your house in 1978 and the tiny mortgage is within a year and a half of being paid off. Your health insurance will run you $12,000/year, cutting your income to $11,000/year gross.

Now how much of a TAX CREDIT is going to compensate for that again?

[question everything]

8. Need to use correct terminology

I was thinking of itemized deductions, or simply move such a deduction to the main form - the way they want to do with charity donation.

This cuts your taxable income by half.

But a better idea would be to give the states such savings and let the states include lower income individuals in their pool where they are provided with low cost insurance, or a free access to clinics - which is better, of course.

[Norquist Nemesis]

6. Tax cut is the Cons' answer to all that ails you

Doesn't matter what the issue is, their answer is always "relieve the burden with a TAX CUT"!!!!

Pathetic.

[MidwestTransplant]

4. First you have to be able to afford it. The obvious goal here is to

enable companies to not pay for healthcare.

[Nickster]

5. Yet another half-assed plan that does nothing to effect any real change.

This is his old health savings account deal that he pushed over the last few years.

So if you're unemployed, how do you afford low cost insurance?

If the health insurance industry can boost their premiums at will, how does a low wage earner keep up?

Why should I get taxed on insurance coverage? Something that I may never use. Will I get money back on the unused portion?

This wouldn't just be yet another tax dodge for the wealthy would it? Yet another place where someone making money can dump however much the max is and avoid paying taxes.

Wouldn't Universal Healthcare take the burden off of business better?

[question everything]

9. I am all for taking employers out of the equation of health care

If, as a first step, all of us have to purchase our own insurance, this will create a strong pressure to force insurance to offer low cost programs and then, a strong wave for universal health insurance.

You can even poll DUers and you will find that many with stable jobs are perfectly happy with the status quo. This is human nature: people do not start screaming until they personally realize the problem.

I have been paying my own health insurance because we have been changing jobs so often that I was getting tired of constantly having to worry of whether my physicians were still in my plan, or to worry whether getting older with possible health problem would eventually exclude me if and when I were on my own.

Plus, this way my employer or, worse, my spouse's, has no knowledge of my health issues.

Can you imagine your employer knowing that a female member of a family visited an OB/GYN who is known to be the only one providing abortions in the area?

[Nickster]

10. I don't agree with your statement about forcing the insurance companies into lower

cost offerings. There would have to be something to force them to offer lower costs. The way it is now, the insurance companies are consolidating their power and forcing everyone to buy would only allow the few insurance companies to keep their prices mysteriously locked to each other, you know that mysterious way that gas stations all seem to have the same price per gallon at any given time. Health care is just way too important to leave to the powers of the free market.