Tax-maniacs backing off health benefits?
Looks like there’s trouble in Beltway taxaholics’ paradise. There are multiple reports that Democrats are backing off a key proposal to tax health benefits to pay for the trillion-dollar government takeover of health care.
WSJ: “A Senate Democrat involved in negotiations on legislation to overhaul the health-care system said senators may be souring on a plan to tax some employer-provided health benefits. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said that public polls conducted over the July 4 congressional recess and reviewed by senators are causing lawmakers to have second thoughts about limiting the tax exclusion for employer health plans.”
Bloomberg: Senators May Drop Tax Plan for Worker Health Benefits
AP: “Tax on health benefits fading?”
But hey, don’t worry. They’ll find something else to tax. Just give ‘em time.
***
More trouble on the Obamacare front?
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal published today, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, suggested the administration is open to negotiations on one of President Obama’s central goals for a health care bill: a government-sponsored insurance plan – a “public option,” in Washington argot – that would compete with the private sector.
“The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private insurers honest. The goal is non-negotiable; the path is” negotiable, the newspaper quoted Mr. Emanuel as saying.
But Mr. Emanuel did not get the last word. Within hours, the chief of staff was big-footed – all the way from Moscow — by his boss, Mr. Obama, who is in Russia prior to the meeting of the “Group of Eight” economic powers. The White House issued an official statement declaring that Mr. Obama remains committed to the public option.
Nutroots aren’t happy.
***
Related must-read: Statist health care, by the numbers
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Get it over with, already. Sheesh!
It’s odd how the utter absudity of taxing health to “pay for” health just doesn’t register with the tax-mentia sufferers.
While the cats in Russia, the mice will play…
Yip.ee.
Translation: The tax payers are catching on to the scheme and our reelection is in jeopardy if we support it.
Don’t they get it? Doesn’t D.C. get it?
We don’t want socialized healthcare!
We don’t want to pay for socialized healthcare!
89% of people are happy with their health care, and you are only having second thoughts!?
You should be shouting from the roof, “this bill is a sham and the people we represent DO NOT WANT IT!”
OT but from Fox:
Fired Inspector General Angered Board With Accusations, Meeting Notes Show
Notes from a contentious meeting of the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service are sure to raise more questions on Capitol Hill about whether the firing of Inspector General Gerald Walpin was rooted more in the agency’s desire to get him off its back than legitimate concerns about his ability to perform his official duties.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/07/fired-ig-angered-board-accusations-meeting-notes/
I want to hear what Joe the Biden has to say about it. That should be good for a real healthy laugh.
Y’know, it’s not that I want the federal juggernaut to tax sodas,… but if they do, I hope I find the willpower to swear off Cherry Coke forever. My waistline would appreciate it, as would be wallet, and I can do my part to deprive the federal behemoth a few dollars.
I’ll stick with my health care, thanks President BroBama!
Why should they tax private health care when they can simply make it unprofitable and impossible for private insurers to compete with tax “subsidized” “free” government health care and do away with the private industry altogether?
Yet another nail hammered into the Coffin of the late, great USA.
this is exactly the point. They don’t care how they will tax it. They will tell you whatever you want to hear.
They just want to SPEND MONEY. That is their entire reason for being. Let them spend it first, then you’ll find out how they are going to pay for it with your money.
That’s what is wrong with it. Their solution to everything is spend more of everyone else’s money. Eventually Obama’s approval numbers will dive. When it does, the economy will be bad, interest rates high, unemployment high. . . the only thing he’ll be able to give them that he has ‘done’ is ‘I’ve spent your money’.
Imagine Obama saying, ‘I can’t believe my approval ratings are so low. How ungrateful of these people. I mean I’ve been spending their money all over the place. What more do they want from me?’
I hope health care in this congress fails. The worse the economy gets, the less likely health care is to pass. I’ve got downside hedges too so I’m ready for these next 6 months.
On the other hand, they will still have this as an option to help pay for Stimulus II now in the works.
We are sooo screwed.
I guess the message from Team Obama all issues depends on who is talking to whom. Obama sez one thing, Emanuel something else. Obama sez one thing, Biden something else. So which is it?
And BTW, where is the stimulus? France reported that they have spent 85% of their stimulus package already and on job-creating projects. Could we be more like the French next time?
Haha… that link to the left site actually made me laugh.
I think that blog’s trying to copy/rip-off your style Michelle, except with the intelligence left out.
When are the nutroots ever happy?
If national health care was enacted prior to the Swine Flu outbreak, the health care system would have broke under the flood of people seeking medical care for the sniffles.
Sounds like there are still a few brain cells left in the Democrap party?????
If socialism is so great, then why did socialist East Germany join with free West Germany? Why didn’t free West Germany join with the “workers paradise” of East Germany? Hmmmm?
Because socialism always fails. It promises everything and delivers nothing.
Name me one successful socialist country. Just remember, I get to name all of those outstanding models of socialist virtue like North Korea, Zimbabwe, USSR, Cuba, China, etc., with those wonderful humanitarians like Kim, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Mugabe, Castro.
If socialism is so great, then why do people that are forced to experience it, run away from it first chance they get?
TooMuchTime
Liberals can’t stand the truth. I love my insurance and since I’m a Senior, I don’t want to be denied preventive medical tests. I plan on taking Social Security early, before Oblahblahblahma sends us into a depression.
They must be up for re-election. Just re-elect us, send us money, and vote for us and we do ALL you want us to do. We will answer the phones, emails, faxes, and letters if you have a problem. WE will be there for you.
L
When Biden is without his muzzle, he actually sounds more conservative than a lot of the RINO congressmen.
If the Left wants a public option then dammit, let them voluntarily send in extra money to the IRS to pay for it.
When are we seceding? We don’t need the Left, but they need us. Without us, they collapse.
Can’t Obama just buy us a big policy in Russia? It would be cheap, you’d get the quality of care he wants, and it would be just as available.
I think we should be thankful for the recession. If we were in a boom then passing health care ‘reform’ and Cap & Trade would be much easier for the Lefties.
Sorry, but I don’t buy it. They may not tax the health benefits, but what’s to keep them from raising the income tax (as they’ve already mentioned) to make up for it? Or lifting the caps off other taxes to make up for it.
This whole health care thing needs to just be put to a complete stop. Sooner rather than later.
I certainly hope and pray when the conservatives make their comeback in 2010 and 2012 they can control their greediness, not acting as they did in the mid 90’s to the middle of this decade which got us where we are now.
We don’t want Obama!
(and we don’t want anymore MJ coverage either)
Dear Idiots in Congress-
Please feel free to tax our health benefits. As soon as you do, I know that I will immediately cancel any benefits my company provides me, thereby preventing your tax, and saving my company thousands.
Please also consider charging me fines for not having insurance. I will be certain not to pay those, either. Then you can feel free to arrest me, and throw me in jail, thereby eliminating another “provider” in your cash strapped economy.
By the way, I am proficient in IT, and specialize in Health Care IT, so I am certain I will be able to barter with any doctor I need to receive care from. Many other Americans will also be able to barter with a variety of skills we earned and learned from a free-market economy.
Using this method, we will easily step around your current restrictions on health insurance and Medicare/Medicaid. You remember the restrictions, don’t you? The ones you included in law that prohibit doctors and practices from providing pro-bono or discounted work if they take a dime of Federal health care dollars? The same laws that force clinical practices to charge all health insurance companies at grossly over inflated Medicare rates?
Funny how that works, too. Clinics and doctors are forced to charge everyone those bloated rates, and then forced again to accept only 60% or less from Medicare/Medicaid and the insurance companies as “payment in full”. Cash payers (which includes lawsuits, worker’s comp, and personal insurance billable accidents) must pay the full rates; no ands, ifs, or buts! Indigent persons and “other unidentifiables” just sit on the hospitals books until they can be written off as uncollected. But hell, those costs are included in the next Medicare increase so you can pass them on to the cash paying customers, aren’t they.
Yep. Every one out here knows who is responsible for any increases in the cost of health care. YOU, CONGRESS! We also know there is no way you can enforce any mandated program you come up with, not with 100 million plus non-compliant constituients. You really have an issue on your hands, don’t you.
Here’s a big clue: QUIT!
Because you can be damn sure we’re gonna fire you anyway come next election.
Especially you, Gerry Connelly from VA’s 11th district. Enjoy your 2 year stint, if it lasts. Fairfax County wants to know where you put the $160 Million you left them in debt, you criminal!
If, after spending their campaign money, the liberals find they are behind in their “reelections”, they just put Acorn to work on the problem…that, and put illegals to vote, like Connelly and Moran.
The consequences of more government debt will be catastrophic to the economy.
Government Debt Has Consequences
Doncha get it, Mad Monk Photog!? You, you poor crawling worm, are too darn STUPID to know what you want, or what’s good for you!
That’s why you need a wise, benevolent, and fatherly leader like Duh One, or Joseph Stalin, or Adolf Hitler, or Pol Pot, or Fidel Castro, or….. well, you get the idea, to TELL you what you want and need.
By the way, have you found another job? I recall once you said you were job hunting. I’ve been praying about that for you.
HAHAHAHAHA!
Good one, 30!
Speaking of Russia, did you know that Russia has a flat tax of 13% instead of a complicated system like we have in the US? It is pretty sad when even the former communist country gets it and the pols here in the US dont.
I hate taxes, but taxing health benefits is not a bad idea. The tax-free employer contribution already acts as a tax. That money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is our real wages.
If the government took money from your check and used it to buy 50% of your health insurance, how would you feel about that? What would you call it?
It is a tax.
Let’s stop this nonsense of having employer provided health care. Give us our money and let us buy our own health insurance–pre-tax–on the individual market. Let’s let insurance companies actually compete. Let’s let us have a choice when it comes to our health care.
There are plenty of other reforms that would have to coincide with this (which would be a bit lengthy for a comment), but lifting the tax exemption on health care benefits might be just what is needed to shake things loose.
Obambi was told by Putin that Russian health care don’t need no competition, while chucking Obambi’s Huevos in a pot of steaming goulash.
Maine is actually toying with the idea of a flat tax as well. Maine!
We all know laughter is the best medicine. Then we don’t need any health coverage!
too many of those pesky democrat voters would see an increase in their taxes and let their representatives know they didn’t like that and remembered the one’s pledge to only tax rich fat cats.
Not for the first time, the idea of taxing health benefits betrays what Zerobama said during the campaign, that he wouldn’t raise taxes on workers. I never believed him, but too many other voters apparently did. If this idea is dropped, the Dems will have to find some other way to reach into our pockets to pay for this insane plan.