[PtrainerNYC]

Basically if you dont have health insurance you get a tax break. If your job gives you health insurance you'll pay tax on it to cover the new tax break. Redistribution at its worst!

[CrawDaddyCA]

Can someone explain the difference between Democrats and Republicans again? Lately, I'm having a hard time differentiating between the two.

[EagleUSA]

God help us. Now our compassionate conservative (LMFAO) President is going socialist on us AGAIN. Another move to redistribute the wealth of America. Karl Marx would be proud of such a proposal. Every time we turn around now, Bush is pandering to the socialists.

Oh, yes, read my lips: "No New Taxes"...straight from the Bush legacy.

[flynmudd]

Sub-S employees that own more than 2% of the company already pay Federal and State taxes on health insurance coverage. However, if you own 2% of a company you usually can afford it. I would prefer to pay for my own health insurance because I would get only a major medical policy with a high deductible in conjunction with a Health Savings Account. It would be cheaper.

[DumpsterDiver]

urges those with generous plans to either embrace cheaper insurance or pay taxes on part of it,

Somebody, somewhere, needs to go embrace a grenade. (Any damages incurred will likely be covered by their embraceable cheaper insurance.)

[Owen]

You're not correct.

FR does NOT have a good feel for this world. The reason is most FReepers are getting a group plan through their jobs. The problem with this is it corrupts FR's perspective of normal American life -- which are the self employed, employees of very small businesses who can't offer health insurance, and a growing additional group are early retirees -- who by definition are not yet 65 and can't get Medicare yet.

Group plans do NOT exclude pre-existing conditions. Repeat. Group plans generally do not exclude pre-existing conditions.

Individual plans can. Insurers won't take on that risk.

The world is changing, people. Retirees are almost NEVER provided health insurance as part of an early out package. They have to find their own -- and if during those years they were part of a group plan they developed a health problem then they have a pre-existing condition and No Insurer Will Cover Them.

As for the idea of taxing superb health coverage, that generally will focus on senior executives who go to hyper thorough physicals that cost 10's of thousands of dollars. The cost of that is paid by the company and the company is now currently taking it as a deduction from its generic sales revenue. So this would not really be a tax increase. It would be more of a closing of that loophole of the company.

People, FR has to get calibrated on this. Health Insurance is likely going to be a bigger issue in 2008 than Iraq. Iraq will be done as a victory or done as a defeat by then.

The problem of pre-existing conditions is crushing. Early retirees face risks to their life savings by not being able to get insurance. The boomers are aging and this group is growing.

[Reagan Man]

Big government Republicanism meets social engineering.

What's up Doc!? LOL

[oceanview]

what? I have to pay taxes now on my employer provided health insurance?

[Bogeygolfer]

"Basically if you dont have health insurance you get a tax break. If your job gives you health insurance you'll pay tax on it to cover the new tax break. Redistribution at its worst!"

That's not even close to a fair analysis. As it stands people with individual coverage are left paying with after tax dollars while group coverage gets a 100% deduction. This is an effort to balance that as well as to continue to encourage higher deductibles which eliminate waste in the system. People run to the emergency room with colds or pains on a regular basis as well as uncounted trips to the doctors which could be handled with over the counter meds. Waste is a killer and the high deductible do wonders. The break in premium so far outweighs the higher deductible since the insurance carrier knows the end result will be far less claims when it's our money we're spending they can pass it along and still come out ahead. So far it's working extremely well and health savings accounts are booming.

[Kozak]

What are you talking about?

You don't get the tax break UNLESS YOU buy insurance. Personal responsibility. Right now it's skewed all in favor of employers which is a very inefficient way to insure people.

[sphinx]

Basically if you dont have health insurance you get a tax break. If your job gives you health insurance you'll pay tax on it to cover the new tax break. Redistribution at its worst!

Not really. Employer-paid benefits are in fact income and should be taxed as such. Removing the tax break for non-cash benefits would be an important step toward unhooking from the third-party payment system, which is a big part of the health care problem.

If we are going to subsidize health insurance at all (which IMHO we should not, except for low-income individuals), the subsidy should be equalized for people whose employers don't cover them.

There is no reason why Joe, who works for GM, Intel, or the government, should receive tax-subsidized health care while Sam, who works for the corner laundry, does not. In fact, Joe is probably making a lot more to begin with. While there are certainly exceptions to the rule, the tax treatment of health insurance is a classic regressive subsidy.

[groanup]

Solution:

http://fairtax.org

[cowtowney]

Here's the deal folks. It's better for you as an employee to have the right to deduct the cost of getting your own insurance. The company that you work for should not have this right solely. THIS IS GOOD NOT BAD. This way, an individual can get a Health Savings Account and deduct its cost. Why should the employer be the only one with this benefit? HSAs are GOOD, because they will help us keep health care costs down and you get to keep the cash that you do not use. They are proven.

Granted, if you don't get the insurance, you don't get the tax break. That's no big deal, because you weren't getting it before.

You can take this insurance with you wherever you work. It is transportable. It is yours. There are tons of benefits.

[Hendrix]

"Basically if you dont have health insurance you get a tax break. If your job gives you health insurance you'll pay tax on it to cover the new tax break. Redistribution at its worst!"

You've got it all wrong. When you receive insurance from your work, it is tax free. However, if you pay for it yourself, you get taxed on the dollars you used to pay for it. Bush is trying to put them on equal footing, which is the right thing to do. Plus, and this is what really needs to be done, TOO MUCH INSURANCE COVERAGE AND FREE COVERAGE FROM EMPLOYERS IS WHAT IS CAUSING HIGH HEALTH CARE COSTS. Until people understand that, and it does sound counterintuitive, we will have health care problems.

[plain talk]

Basically if you dont have health insurance you get a tax break

Where did you see that? It says the tax break is for those who buy their own health insurance.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Just lower and simplify the friggin' tax code and get the government out of healthcare! How hard can this be???

[bray]

I can hear the Unions screaming now. When you are paying $750-1500 per month for HI, how can that not be income? Since they shot down his attorney bill, may as well attack the other side.

Pray for W and Our Troops

[Wolfstar]

Basically if you dont have health insurance you get a tax break.

You people who post articles, then start off with your own falsely negative spin make me sick.

The first sentence from the article states:

President Bush will propose in his State of the Union address a tax break for people who buy their own health insurance...

That's excellent news considering how many people in this country buy their own health insurance. Like millions of others, I qualify for absolutely zero tax breaks. I do not own a home. I do not have dependent children. I do not own a business, but work as a "contract" employee in the IT department of a large corporation.

If this passes, finally there will be a tax break that helps me and people who are in a similar situation.

[Myrddin]

I'm paying about $240 every pay period (2 weeks) for my healthcare coverage. That money is taken from my gross earning and excluded from my federal taxable wages. It is an Aetna PPO at company group sponsored rates. It still comes with $1500 per person per year "deductible". If I understand this proposal from Bush, I'm going to be taxed on whatever value is placed on the company "contribution" to the group insurance coverage. I didn't use ANY of my medical coverage last year. That's been the case 5 out of the past 6 years.

I'm currently cruising through TurboTax after receiving the W2 for myself and my wife. My federal taxes are around $38,000 this year...and I'm not finished. My company went public and forced a dividend down the throat of every stockholder to buy down the stock price before splitting. That was equity I really didn't want drained. Now I have to wait for a 1099-DIV to continue doing my taxes.

[VRWC For Truth]

More Bush pandering to the left and it fits right in with his shamnesty plans.

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

It's a good idea. Bush is trying to remove the unfairness of NOT taxing employer-paid health premiums. (Would it be fair to NOT tax employer-paid mortgage payments, or car payments?)
Bush wants to move away from the current unfairness. He will be xxxx upon, criticized and slammed for it.
I would go all the way. Tax employer-paid health premiums.
OR
leave their taxable status alone, but provide a 100% deduction from gross income for health premiums paid by the self-employed and those whose employer doesn't pay for health premiums.
No other way is fair.