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Obama not closing door on possible health care tax

Goobieman

Goobieman

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Obama not closing door on possible health care tax

WASHINGTON (AP) - With lawmakers trying to crunch the numbers on a $1 trillion health care overhaul, President Barack Obama is leaving the door open to a new tax on employer-provided health care benefits.

Senior senators said Wednesday the benefits tax could be essential for the complex plan to be fully financed.

"I don't want to prejudge what they're doing," Obama said, referring to proposals in the Senate to tax workers who get expensive insurance policies. Obama, who campaigned against the tax when he ran for president, drew a quick rebuff from organized labor.
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My Way News - Obama not closing door on possible health care tax

Assuming that this goes thru, and that medical benefits are inputed as income and taxed accordingly -- does this qualify as a break in the promise to not raise the taxes of anyone making $250k or less?
 
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Didn't he slam Mccain for wanting to do this?
 
Goobieman said:
My Way News - Obama not closing door on possible health care tax

Assuming that this goes thru, and that medical benefits are inputed as income and taxed accordingly -- does this qualify as a break in the promise to not raise the taxes of anyone making $250k or less?
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Well, sort of. It isn't a hike in the income tax RATE persay, so Obama can claim that their tax rates didn't go up. Especially if Congress lowers the actual RATE for people earning less than $250K.

As for the substance of the issue, it's a good idea to tax health care benefits as normal income. This will cleave health care from employment once and for all, as we should have done long ago.
 
Kandahar said:
Well, sort of. It isn't a hike in the income tax RATE persay, so Obama can claim that their tax rates didn't go up. Especially if Congress lowers the actual RATE for people earning less than $250K.

As for the substance of the issue, it's a good idea to tax health care benefits as normal income. This will cleave health care from employment once and for all, as we should have done long ago.
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Explain why?
 
stevenb said:
Explain why?
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The only reason that employers provide health care in the first place is because it's a win-win situation due to a tax loophole. No one pays taxes on it, as the law currently stands. Employers can deduct it as a payroll expense, and employees don't have to count it as income.

However, tying health care to employment creates horrendous economic inefficiencies. It means that people are reluctant to quit a job that they suck at, or to go back to school, because they can't afford individual plans. It makes people completely dependent on their employers to the point where losing their job (and their health insurance) could wipe out an entire lifetime's savings in a few months.

The prudent thing to do would be to tax it as regular income, since there is no fundamental difference between being paid in cash or being paid in health benefits.
 
Kandahar said:
Well, sort of. It isn't a hike in the income tax RATE persay, so Obama can claim that their tax rates didn't go up. Especially if Congress lowers the actual RATE for people earning less than $250K.

As for the substance of the issue, it's a good idea to tax health care benefits as normal income. This will cleave health care from employment once and for all, as we should have done long ago.
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You could eliminate all deductions and it wouldn't be an increase in the income tax rate either, but I doubt that's what people had in mind when he made a "no tax" pledge.
 
"President Barack Obama is leaving the door open to a new tax on employer-provided health care benefits."

Well, that pretty much zaps his promise to not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000...err $200,000...er $150,000...er $100,000...er $25,000 now doesn't it?
 
Kandahar said:
The only reason that employers provide health care in the first place is because it's a win-win situation due to a tax loophole. No one pays taxes on it, as the law currently stands. Employers can deduct it as a payroll expense, and employees don't have to count it as income.

However, tying health care to employment creates horrendous economic inefficiencies. It means that people are reluctant to quit a job that they suck at, or to go back to school, because they can't afford individual plans. It makes people completely dependent on their employers to the point where losing their job (and their health insurance) could wipe out an entire lifetime's savings in a few months.

The prudent thing to do would be to tax it as regular income, since there is no fundamental difference between being paid in cash or being paid in health benefits.
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Nah, the prudent thing to do would be to eliminate the income tax and end a huge number of money games and shenanigans related to it.

Another prudent thing to do would be to take government out of the health care business, since it's a violation of the Constitution.
 
It's kind of crazy that we expect companies to pay for our health insurance. We don't expect them to pay for our car insurance or home insurance. Why's health any different? The only reason companies do it is because of wage caps during WWII. Government intervention fails again.
 
RightinNYC said:
You could eliminate all deductions and it wouldn't be an increase in the income tax rate either, but I doubt that's what people had in mind when he made a "no tax" pledge.
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Fair enough, but Congress is always tinkering with what is/isn't deductible or exempt. By that standard, pretty much every president and Congress has raised taxes on something or other.

But more importantly, this is the right thing to do.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Nah, the prudent thing to do would be to eliminate the income tax and end a huge number of money games and shenanigans related to it.
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Yes, yes. We get it. You don't like paying taxes. Just keep talking about how it's prudent to turn the clock back to 1913. I'm sure the American people will listen to you.

But for those of us living on Planet Earth who actually want to discuss the issue at hand (taxing health benefits as regular income), this is the only logical thing to do. There is really no fundamental difference between being paid in cash and being paid in health benefits.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Another prudent thing to do would be to take government out of the health care business, since it's a violation of the Constitution.
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You adamantly defended government funding for NASA yesterday, so you have totally forfeited any moral high ground on a strict interpretation of the 10th Amendment.
 
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Yes, let's eliminate all taxes because parks are bad for us, scholarships are bad for us, and Medicare/Medicaid are bad for us.

Funny story, the other day one guy told me he hated Democrats because by the time he grew up, there wouldn't be any Social Security.
 
Kandahar said:
Yes, yes. We get it. You don't like paying taxes. Just keep talking about how it's prudent to turn the clock back to 1913. I'm sure the American people will listen to you.
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That's a stupid argument. We are much more prosperous than those people. Don't act like our quality of life would return to that.
 
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Scarecrow Akhbar said:
"President Barack Obama is leaving the door open to a new tax on employer-provided health care benefits."

Well, that pretty much zaps his promise to not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000...err $200,000...er $150,000...er $100,000...er $25,000 now doesn't it?
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And I am still waiting for my health care to be reduced by $2500 as promised.
 
Kandahar said:
Yes, yes. We get it. You don't like paying taxes. Just keep talking about how it's prudent to turn the clock back to 1913. I'm sure the American people will listen to you.

But for those of us living on Planet Earth who actually want to discuss the issue at hand (taxing health benefits as regular income), this is the only logical thing to do. There is really no fundamental difference between being paid in cash and being paid in health benefits.
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What? There is a huge difference b/w getting paid in cash and getting paid in health benefits.

A healthy person, 18-30, may never go to a doctor, but he will have been paying for something he never used for 12 years. How much cash would that give him on hand over that 12 year period that he could used on other things in life that counted?

Tell ya what, start paying for the internet at $50 a month. Dont ever actually hook up to it, and do this for the next 12 years, while never actually using it. Then come back and tell us there is no difference. Lets figure out what you could have been buying in place of a $50 a month throw away that you never used.

Eliminating the income tax isnt going to send us back to 1913. Sorry, that was just ridiculous to even state.
 
Kandahar said:
But for those of us living on Planet Earth who actually want to discuss the issue at hand (taxing health benefits as regular income), this is the only logical thing to do. There is really no fundamental difference between being paid in cash and being paid in health benefits.
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So, will your health bennies be taxed under this plan?
 
Smoke[MaxX] said:
Yes, let's eliminate all taxes because parks are bad for us, scholarships are bad for us, and Medicare/Medicaid are bad for us.

Funny story, the other day one guy told me he hated Democrats because by the time he grew up, there wouldn't be any Social Security.
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Is that a funny story? Medicare/Medicaid/SS are all going under. You got 2 options on them: raises taxes to re-fund them for awhile or start cutting benefits and coverage.

That is it. I dont find it funny at all, that the government is going to harm us all in the long run with their bloated socialist programs.
 
TheHat said:
Is that a funny story? Medicare/Medicaid/SS are all going under. You got 2 options on them: raises taxes to re-fund them for awhile or start cutting benefits and coverage.

That is it. I dont find it funny at all, that the government is going to harm us all in the long run with their bloated socialist programs.
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When you complain to Democrats that they're destroying Social Security, a program that they implemented in the first place- yeah I find that pretty funny.

Also, you know what- I come from a pretty wealthy family (few pharmacists and my father's a doctor) and I also aspire to be a doctor some day. To say that we're well off financially isn't exactly an understatement. I have no problem taxing the wealthy more than taxing the poor. I'm not saying tax the wealthy until they're poor or even middle class. Think about this though, taxing one millionaire one percent is $10,000. That's only one percent, a relative drop in the bucket to a millionaire. However, to somebody who only makes 40k a year, that's 3 months pay.
 
Kandahar said:
Well, sort of. It isn't a hike in the income tax RATE persay, so Obama can claim that their tax rates didn't go up. Especially if Congress lowers the actual RATE for people earning less than $250K.
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No.... but it is an increase in their income taxes because it adds to what counts as income.
 
Unions? Health Benefits May Avoid Tax Under Senate Proposal - Bloomberg.com
The U.S. Senate proposal to impose taxes for the first time on “gold-plated” health plans may bypass generous employee benefits negotiated by unions.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, the chief congressional advocate of taxing some employer-provided benefits to help pay for a $1 trillion overhaul of the U.S. health system, says any change should exempt perks secured in existing collective-bargaining agreements, which can be in place for as long as five years.

The exception, which could make the proposal more politically palatable to Democrats from heavily unionized states such as Michigan, is adding controversy to an already contentious debate. It would shield the 12.4 percent of American workers who belong to unions from being taxed while exposing some other middle-income workers to the levy.

“I can’t think of any other aspect of the individual income tax that treats benefits of different people differently because of who they work for,” said Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington research group that often criticizes Democrats’ economic proposals. Edwards said the carve-out “smacks of political favoritism.”
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Damn Dirty Dems!
 
All this tax will accomplish is the lightening of the Middle Classes pockets.
 
****ing brilliant. Tax the people who actually have private healthcare and aren't costing the system money. So the people WITH insurance now have to pay even more money. Who's the brainiac that thought up that wonderful idea?
 
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