Senators weigh tax hikes to pay for health care

msnbc ^ | 5/12/2009 | ap

[tobyhill]

Senators are considering limiting — but not eliminating — the tax-free status of employer-provided health benefits to help pay for President Barack Obama's overhaul plan and provide coverage to 50 million uninsured Americans.

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Tuesday that there are no easy options. Senators began grappling with how to finance guaranteed coverage for all Americans, even as independent experts put the costs at about $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

Obama sees a world in which doctors and hospitals compete to offer quality service at lower costs, and the savings help cover the uninsured. Turning that vision into reality remains the biggest challenge for the president and his backers, because hard cash — not just ideas — is required to cover upfront costs of expanding coverage.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

This exactly what Zero accused McCain of proposing in tv and radio ads throughout the campaign.

Good thing the sheep have non-existent memories.

[Myrddin]

The uninsured are already covered by not paying their bills. The hospitals jack up prices to those who do pay their bills to cover the losses. Those $500 Band-Aids aren't made of fine gold mesh. The double dipping (getting paid twice by multiple insurance coverage, then billing the customer for some more) is how many hospitals financially rape those who actually have some means to cover the costs. The RATS want to tax the employer portion of the health care benefits. Fine. Lump it into my gross and cease offering the "benefit". We all pay full price from our net pay. The $8,000 untaxed benefit will have to be $16,000 gross pay to manage the same net amount for the insurance...assuming the same group rate deal is available. Bleed that turnip!

[TortReformer]

He is going to ruin healthcare...

[microgood]

The tax favoritism for health insurance benefits creates a foolish over consumption, misallocation of resources, and inflated prices.

I do not see why giving more money to the government would solve it though. You have the same benefit, you have to pay tax on it, you might as well use it. Its not like you will have a bunch of new choices, you will have the same insurance minus how much more of your income goes to the government.

I suspect you are a small business owner, and I empathize with your situation, but I do not see how taxing the snot out of people who have insurance through work helps you.

[Blood of Tyrants]

So, they tax MY health care to pay for someone else’s? Health care is already inflated by the deadbeats who use emergency rooms for primary care. How screwed up is that?

[Sloth]

Hey, I've got an idea. How about NOT paying for anyone's %$*&#@!% health care, then you won't have to raise taxes.

[relee]

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Tuesday that there are no easy options.

Yes, there is an easy option. Don't do anything about health care.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Free for me. Not for thee.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Thieves. All of them.

[chiefqc]

Which also includes the gang of crooks, liars and do nothing elected freeloaders that stink up the city of Washington D.C..

[Tzimisce]

I was just thinking that I’m not taxed enough. :)

[socialismisinsidious]

Socialized Medicine aka Universal Health Care PING LIST

FReepmail me if you want to be added to or removed from this ping list.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

No matter what it takes, if the government tries to take away my freedom to define my own life I will find a way around it. I don't exist to subsidize the lazy. I will work as hard as I can to be charitable, but I will not support the lazy with my life. I consider Obama one of those that are lazy. Being a community organizer is not a job. It's a scam.

[Rome2000]

This is the same idiocy that imbecile McCain was proposing.

Its going to hit the fan, "Senators" ought to remember what happened to Cicero.

[kara2008]

There is no way in hell that the Unions are going to agree to any kind of Federal tax increase, especially not on their benefits.

I bet the RATS will just exclude union workers.

[hattend]

bttt

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

Chairman Obama gave us our word that nobody making under $250,000 would see their taxes raised.

I am beginning to wonder what items they are going to include in that $250,000. Employer health care might be worth $15,000 for a family. Have an office phone? $500. Air conditioning and heating? Internet access? A parking space? Janitors? Exterminators? Bathroom? Company picnic?

[bill1952]

Obama sees a world in which doctors and hospitals compete to offer quality service at lower costs...

LOL! No, he does NOT.
That is called CAPITALISM and what they are describing is called a MANDATE.
Mandating anything leads invariably to one of two things:
1) Higher prices forever, or
2) lower quality through rationing or simply a flight of quality by the providers to a more rewarding career.

Which, of course leads to cheap foreign labor being imported to do the jobs Americans will not do.
Anyone notice the number of non indigenous medical professionals in America now?
It has already begun.

[SunkenCiv]

Senators are considering limiting -- but not eliminating -- the tax-free status of employer-provided health benefits to help pay for President Barack Obama's overhaul plan and provide coverage to 50 million uninsured Americans.

That noise you just heard was the other shoe dropping. Those with health insurance will see rates go up, coverage go down, and increases in the federal income tax and other federal taxes (and probably state taxes, once they get into the act) in order to pay for a massive new federal bureaucracy which feeds itself first, and doesn't provide anything to anyone.

[dools007]

Just so I have this straight—The Messiah has more than quadrupled Bush’s deficit in the first 100 days of his occupying the WH. Social Security is in trouble. On the same day the The Messiah himself broadcast the deficit number he also called for increasing health insurance enrollment. At first, he said the increase in numbers of people getting insurance provided health care—and commensurate cost increases—would be paid for by health care provider cost reductions. Then he said an emphasis on preventitive medicine would ultimately reduce health care costs (that has already been proven to be wrong so he is lying). Somewhere in the last couple of days The Marxist Onada—or someone who works for him (and can actually use a calculator)—did the math. There is no money for any new spending because the US is in deep deep debt. So, The Most Compentent President in US History is now proposing a tax on soda (pardon me while I laugh) and or anything else that he thinks he can get away with.

So, all of you who make under $250,000 and were told you would see no new taxes, what are you thinking? Do you even think?