Bush's risky State of the Union ploy (What a scam!!!)

[aggiesal]

The president's emphasis on health care addresses a vital need, but the Democrats denounce it as an unfair tax. Fortune's Nina Easton previews the upcoming battle.

FORTUNE Magazine
By Nina Easton, Fortune Washington bureau chief
January 23 2007: 10:23 AM EST

WASHINGTON (Fortune) -- Just when you thought Washington politics couldn't get any weirder: now George W. Bush wants to tax the rich.

That's right. The Republican president the Democrats accuse of playing proxy-in-chief for America's privileged elite wants to raise taxes on executives and other beneficiaries of generous, employer-provided medical insurance plans.

It's all part of a plan to reduce health care costs that he will detail in his State of the Union speech tonight. But of course the Democrats (who these days like to think they're thinking two political steps ahead of the White House - and probably are) have already devised their own name for Bush's health care proposal. "I'm going to call it 'a tax hike on the middle class'," Democratic Senate strategist James Manley tells Fortune. Ouch.

Social Security debate: It's back

Prod all you want, but Bush administration officials studiously refuse to use the words "tax hike" at all, let alone a tax hike on the middle or upper-middle or even upper class. Bush officials prefer to call the plan a "revenue neutral" tax reform that "levels the playing field" between those who enjoy generous insurance policies from their employers and those who can't afford health insurance at all.

"There will be some winners and some losers," concedes Katherine Baicker, Harvard-trained economist and member of Bush's Council on Economic Advisers.

Under the plan, people who now buy their own insurance or sign up for basic coverage from their employers would get a tax break. But those 20 percent of employees with "more generous, deluxe, gold-plated plans," as Baicker puts it, will have to pay a tax if they "didn't change their behavior at all." That is, if they don't opt for a lower-cost insurance plan.




More at link:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/23/news/economy/easton_SOTU.fortune/

So basically, you're only allowed the basic services. If you opt for a better plan, you get to pay for the service, then get taxed on it.

This doesn't smell right.

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[The_Casual_Observer]

1. All of a sudden people with jobs, who work for some company are

"Executives".

How about "Harvard-trained economist" Harvard trains people now!


What bullshit.

[SharonAnn]

21. The real executives will either be exempt or will get compensation to cover the cost.

That's how it's done in corporate America. For example, moving expenses were considered income, so companies paid the executive the estimated amount of what the taxes would be. Etc.

[Pharaoh]

2. Every thing he does turns to shit

Why would I want this guy fix healthcare and social security?

let's get rid of this moron!!

[indepat]

3. Nothing ever proposed by a 'puke administration ever meets the smell test

when the middle class is concerned: after all if the most affluent are to have a 'puke tax haven, who's going to bear the brunt.

[superconnected]

4. forget it, I got it.

It's taxation on health care.. got it. That is the us gov domain.

[pretzel4gore]

5. "our objective, gopigs: america should take bush seriously...

and if they do, we screw the suckers some more....haha"

[brook]

6. It absolutely stinks.

People work like dogs to get an education so that they can qualify for mid-income level jobs/careers that offer health benefits - and for this they're going to be taxed?!!! I don't know whose anus they pulled this plan out of, but they can stuff it back where it came from.

[shanti]

23. so basically

he's screwing us both ways. :grr: did we expect any different?

[sam sarrha]

7. if he taxes the rich, there will be loop hole the size of Texas and a subsidy.. and you will end up

being taxed instead..

[Clinton_Co_Regulator]

8. This is about Union Busting people

to raise taxes on ... beneficiaries of generous, employer-provided medical insurance plans.



I edited out executives because we all know that they don't pay taxes anyway.

[dysfunctional press]

9. i think that it's a GREAT idea...

back when my wife and i had to pay for privatr insurance- i thought it seemed INCREDIBLY unfair- that some people would get employer-provided health insurance- and not have to pay taxes on the income value of the benefit.

[Benhurst]

10. ...

:thumbsup:

[Penance]

11. ... unless you think decent health care is a bad idea.

Seems like this plan is trying to persuade people against employer-provided health care plans by taxing them. Works the same as a protective tarrif. Businesses (understandably) want out of having to provide health care and the medical insurance industry wants to sell more private plans (less bargaining power on the part of the buyer). The people that win are Bush's friends: Big Business and the Big Health.

I agree it's unfair that some get a better health plan than others. I just don't think the best way to do it is to screw everyone.

[Toots]

16. Why should employers be responsible for everyone's health

If anyone should be responsible besides the person themselves it should be the government. Government is responsible for the health and welfare of the nation. That is it's sole purpose. With this plan of Bush*'s you have to realize that the employer will get a tax break while the employee will pick up that break and have to pay instead. The rich will continue to get richer with a Bush* around...

[aggiesal]

13. Might as well start taxing ...

that free coke dispensing machine.
Or how about that free lunch you got from your company during Thanksgiving or X-mas.
Let tax that free gym membership your getting.
How about the education reimbursement you got to get your next degree.
I'm sure there are more, that others get and can add to the list.

I understand your delemma, but maybe you should have had a tax deduction on your private medical insurance. I'm sure big corps/comp are getting this deduction.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. Aren't perks like gym memberships already taxed?

Bear with me, I'm British, but anything like that gets taxed here. Hell, a company I worked for said it thought it might have to tax allowing employees to make personal calls from the company telephones. Everything except the education reimbursement is taxed in the UK, I'm pretty sure.

[aggiesal]

17. They are not taxed here.

They are considered benefits for a reason.

Companies here will do whatever it takes to get the top talent.
I interviewed at one company that brought in a mobile car wash,
and had all employee cars washed weekly paid by the company.
The same company paid for a mobile oil change company to again
change the oil for every employee cars, every 3 months.

Another example here in the states, we have vacation time and
personal time. About 20 years ago, personal time was split into
sick time and personal time.
At that time I had 2 weeks vacation every year. 2 weeks sick time,
and 2 week personal time.
Sick and Personal time were mandated by the state, so if you didn't
use all your time, at the end of the year you lost the remaining
unused time.
Vacation on the other had, was a benefit that you earned.
We would accumulate about 6.67 hours per month. Companies would allow you
to carry over vacation time to the following years. If you max your
vacation time, the next month you got 6.67 hours extra on you pay check
to cover your vacation earned.

Now days, companies have lumped all three into 1 called personal time.
And they give you 4 weeks. Right off the bat, we lost 2 weeks. Now
if you max out your personal time, the next months hours are lost. This
is no longer considered a benefit.

I know 1 company instead of giving you vacation hours, they give you
vacation dollars equivalent to hours. But because you get cost of living
increases every year or promotion with pay increases, when you decide to
take a vacation 2 years later, the dollars would only cover 35 hours
of your current salary.

It just annoys me that companies are taking more and more benefits away
that mean anything, and give you free sodas, car washes, oil changes.

[pitohui]

19. crabs in a bucket, exhbit a

i went without insurance for 15 years because i could not afford it

not once did it occur to me that it would be better off that my neighbor who did get it through his job should be taxed on it or denied it through his work so that he could go ahead and die in his thirties of hodgkin's disease

what's wrong with people? i mean, yeah, misery loves company, but so much as to want others to suffer and die because you have suffered? that way lies madness, that way lies "well, i was beaten as a kid so i'm gonna beat my own kid because that's the way it has to be" blah blah blah blah

i despair of the human race

this is why we never really get anywhere or achieve anything because of our envy of others who have some small benefit or improvement, we would rather be crabs in a bucket dragging everyone down

[dysfunctional press]

20. most people would see a tax break under this plan...

most people don't have 100% employee coverage- the ones who do are generally in the upper-upper-middle class. the uber-wealthy don't have employers to provide them with health care anyway.
it will also mean a tax break for those people who don't get employer paid insurance, and can only afford the bare bones low-cost packages.

if you looked at the numbers involved, i don't think that you'd find it all that objectionable.

[SoCalDem]

24. Here's the rub.

Let's use round numbers..

Let's say your "benefits" are worth $8K a year.
($4 x 40 hours x 50 weeks)

You will now be taxed on that "extra" $8K ..

Say you want to use that "deduction" on your income taxes?

Let's say you RENT, and do not have enough deductible expenses to file a long form..

Can you say "screwn"?


or what if your "taxes owed" end up to be $1k?
(you won'T be getting a check from the IRS for $7K)

this is a scam to funnel more money into the bank accounts of the rich insurance companies..

and a way to encourage employers who now offer insurance, to decide that the additional paperwork is not worth it..and then just quit offering it..

Will they now give you that $4 an hour they "say" you benefits are worth?

What if you have a kid with a birth defect, or you have diabetes? or any pre-existing condition?

Try finding "affordable" insurance on your own..

*² is just doing what he always does..

He came up with another lame-brained scam to give more money to the already rich..at the expense of the people who are barely scraping by..

[dysfunctional press]

28. using arbitrary numbers means nothing.

and ANYONE can file the long form to claim the deduction- if they choose not to, can you say "LAZY"?

i have had to find insurance with a pre-existing condition- it's not pretty, and it's not cheap- and i have absolutely NO PROBLEM with people being taxed on the income value of their health benefits. just ask anyone who doesn't get health benefits from their employer what their opinion on the matter is- i'm sure you'll find that most agree that it should be treated as the income that it is...except of course for those knee-jerks who automatically dismiss anything * proposes on it's face, without actually looking into the details.

:eyes:

[Benhurst]

25. If everyone were thrown into the same boat, members of Congress

included, it would be only a matter of weeks before this nation had a decent national health plan. A good percentage of the U.S. Congress and Electric Dick in particular wouldn't be able to get health insurance at any price.

It's time for the United States to be dragged into the Twentieth Century. National Health for all. Then we can get to work trying to bring The World's Only Superpower into the Twenty-first Century.

[dysfunctional press]

27. I'm all for a universal single-payer health plan...

and eventually, it WILL happen.

until then, i have no problem with people being taxed on the value of their health benefits.

[Lasher]

26. Thank you for saying that, pitohui

But don't dispair of the entire human race. The glass is half full.

Why is it wrong for Paris Hilton & company to pay a single dime on their inherited wealth, but right to tax employee health care benefits of middle class employees? Shell games like this often don't make sense because their real objective is not revealed.

What this is really about is ending employer-provided healthcare. It's going down just about exactly as it's been predicted here at DU and elsewhere for a long time. Corporate executives, particularly those of insurance providers, have been asking Junior for this for years and this is the payoff.

It should make the crabs in the bucket happy to anticipate the day when nobody in the middle class can afford anything but catastrophic health care insurance - or none at all.

The smart move by Democrats right now is to counter with a proposal for single provider universal healthcare for everyone through Medicare. I'd like to see employers out of the health care picture this way, but not by just cutting off benefits that some have now.

[raccoon]

29. As someone who hasn't had employer-provided health insurance

since 1990, and only recently was able to afford private insurance, I can kind of see your point.

Add to that, private insurance (if you can get it) can exclude pre-existing conditions you have. In other words, they ain't gonna pay anything for that condition never, ever, amen.

But what the US really needs is a national health plan for all citizens.

[Casablanca]

12. Beware of corporatists masquerading as populists.

He knows any health care plan he proposes is DOA with the Dem Congress, so now he thinks he can feint towards the center. If the Dems ignore it and push their own plan (and they will), he can whine about them being obstructionists and convince a few conservative Neanderthals that the Dems are just opportunists. If the Dems were to give in to him the way they have over the last 6+ years, he can always count of the Repub minority and Dem fencesitters to water his own plan down to placate his real base.

I figure he's going to play this little game for the remainder of his term. And the fact that none of his pseudo-populist schemes will be implemented until 2009 at the earliest means that he doesn't even consider them his promises to break. He'll be in his Paraguayan compound by then.

[jamesinca]

14. Here is what I think

Everybody gets cheap ass no good health care, employers are encouraged to give it under this plan. The very wealthy who can afford a real good plan get taxed at a rate that they can easily afford. After all it is directed at 20 percent of employees with "more generous, deluxe, gold-plated plans," What I see happening is the shoveling of billions into the insurance industry with no return for the consumer. The insurance industry then gives kindly to the GOP. This has nothing to do with advancing the cause of Americas, only the corporation. Maybe I am just not trusting of this administration?

[pitohui]

18. being taxed for something we pay for that we can already barely afford

there is no end to their desire to steal from us, no end to it, they won't be happy until we are dead and they can loot everything w.out protest

[Egnever]

22. Hmm is this just spin?

I don't trust bush to put forth anything that resembles decent legislation,But this sounds like spin to me.

If i am reading correctly it would give people with basic health insurance a tax break while leaving other levels of coverage as they are today. So its not any kind of new tax just a reduction in taxes for those on the bottom end of the food chain.. I have a different problem with this as I think it promotes a move to less complete medical coverage and by doing so makes it easier for companies to offer less and less.

But I think calling this a tax on the wealthy or middle class or whatever they want to call it in this article is disingenuous spin.

I don't like it when pukes do it, I don't like it when Dem's do it. I like to think I can handle making my own decision when given the facts.

[yellowcanine]

30. My employer pays the same amount regardless. If I want a better plan and am

willing to pay for it, why should I be punished for that? On the other hand, the dental plan stinks. So I pay dental out of pocket. So Bush would tax me on the extra to get a decent medical plan (and yes I pay a $25 copay), but I still would fork out extra for dental. How is this not a tax increase? What the hell is a "gold plated plan" anyway? One that actually pays the bills if you get sick, doesn't require a ton of paperwork to justify everything, and doesn't require a "referral" or "preapproval" to get a test done that every medical professional says people of your age should get done? Ok I plead guilty. I have a "gold plated plan". It does that. This is damn insulting. Bush seems to think that people are going to be running to the doctor unnecessarily if they have decent medical coverage. Does he think I like having some doc stick his finger up my ass so much that I am going to pay $25 for the privilege more than once a year? I probably don't want to know the answer to that.