Posted on 05/12/2009 4:13:33 PM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
He is doing a great job of taxing us already...he just prints money...making the people who have some money, money worth less and less.
‘Progressive’ taxation without floating a new tax.
Thanks and will do.
I have a feeling that's why the committee is using the word trim rather than "we need to tax health care benefits totally". Otherwise, yes, the unions that got Obama elected will have a hissy fit.
The committee is going through mental gyrations in order to allow this to happen to every non-union worker with benefits and to exclude unions (and governmental workers) from having to be taxed.
It'll be in the fine print on page 2,396 of the Health Care Act that will just have to be rushed through Congress within minutes of the ink drying.
I can see the "Reason for Visit" to the ER on my computer. A couple weeks ago, someone came to the ER because they had a cold. Really.
Dennis Miller puts it very well - he said he doesn’t mind helping the helpless; he does mind helping the clueless.
...Tort Reform.
Lawyers extract billions out of health care. Frivolous lawsuits lead to excessive and redundant testing and multiple consultations, not to mention the growing shortage of Doctors willing to practice in certain fields, egg OB-GYN.
The company will retain its tax deduction, you as the employee will get hosed.
This represents a massive deduction in terms of your net pay. Say you receive what the Government values as $20,000 in benefits, at 15% tax rates that's $3,000 less in take home pay. If you make say $100,000 and pay $15,000 in regular taxes your total tax bill is now $18,000 or 18%, a 20% increase in your tax rate.
Yeah you are correct, it is called imputed income. If you employer moves you from one part of the country and pays for it, the cost of the move goes on your personal income taxes. Been around for a while. Now they want to expand on the scam if claiming you earned income when you really never saw the cash. It is a way of redistributing wealth.
Obamaism is an obsession which is at the forefront of too many persons’ every thought. I pity the children in their classrooms, and I grieve for our country, as these are the citizens of the next generation.
God help us all. These cretins are too stupid to understand they are creating their own hell by supporting Obamasiah.
Yeah, I got ahead of myself, sorry. I understand what this article means to all classes of employees, tax hike. And it will hit hardest middle class who has struggled to maintain health insurance premiums with their employer offered programs or privately.
It won’t affect us too much because we pay the majority of our costs for premiums. But I have never asked for policies that specifically suited my position in life. I want healthcare insurance for all. My research since 11/06 says once everyone has some responsibility and cost towards healthcare, costs will go down. But I do not want to pay for illegals, people who do not want to work and jerks like that guy on 60 minutes who wanted free healthcare because of his $600.00 out of pocket. And I don’t want a overwhelmed system where we have no physicians because illegals will be lining up for healthcare. Look at what the flu did to Mexico. Look what a heat wave in Europe did, 15,000 dead. Physicians are already saying medical school is not worth what is coming soon.
But the only way obama can takeover the health care system completely is to bankrupt private insurers. That is and has been the goal although they will not say it outright until one day they just do it. obama can only achieve that by taking away the tax breaks for corporations so they cannot afford to offer it to their employees.
This is just a beginning of attaining his goal. His usual slight of hand before stuffing down the reality. obama will also say he raised the level of income for these who will pay higher taxes. Everything is a agenda and accolades for obama.
One party rule is here firmly in every decision now.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/13/obama-announce-deal-health-care-reform/
House Republicans assailed the Democrats’ health care plan at a weekly GOP leadership news conference.
Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence, R-Ind., said that despite the cooperation of private insurers, hospitals and doctors, the health care plan will still hurt the private insurance system and put Americans on the government dole.
“That is simply a pathway to socialized medicine and the American people aren’t buying it,” he said.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said offering a government option to buy health care will starve out the private option.
“I think we have to be very careful here that we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water,” he said. “Let’s go in and figure out how we can better control costs. Let’s go in and figure out how we can better provide access to affordable high quality insurance.”
Though this vague pledge has since drawn skepticism, top Obama advisers say it changes the political dynamic by depriving Republican critics of the grassroots and fundraising clout that would be theirs if doctors, hospital, insurers and drug makers refused to cooperate with the White House — as they appear to be now.
“It’s hard to talk about socialized medicine when the hospitals, doctors, insurers, the private sector players are working with us at the White House,” a top White House official said.
If government were not involved at all we would have a better system. Government is the problem, not the solution. We currently have the best medical care in the world, but Obama and his Socialists in Congress want to ruin it.
they all have to go
Chairman Obama gave us our word that nobody making under $250,000 would see their taxes raised.
See that is where he got you. If you make $250,000.00 as a couple you won’t pay anymore in taxes. Individually he will wipe you both out but if your name happens to be Couple and you make less than $250,000.00 you are safe.
Uh, that would require the government quit meddling in the health care industries and allow competition. Government is THE primary cause of health care inflation.
"Obama sees a world", yeah I know what that means:
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
Just today, a nurse I work with was talking about this very thing and stated that she had convinced her son not to go to medical school - gave him the same reasons we all are stating here. Why have exhorbitant school loans when you'll get only paid the same as an entry level nurse under socialized medicine.
I overheard one of our doctors say that he earns about $17.00 per hour for Medicare reimbursements. And that is a couple dollars less per hour than graduate nurses earn at this hospital I work at.
The real question here is WHY IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT in the health care business?
Equal opportunity, NOT equal results.
The time is nearing when we need to begin the road back to sanity.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.