Or at least the McCain health care tax increase:
Currently, employer health benefits are tax deductible, as they have been since the Second World War. This amounts to a huge subsidy for employer-based health insurance and is the reason why the workplace is at the center of our health insurance system. Eliminating that subsidy will make employer-based health insurance $3.6 trillion more expensive. The effects of that on the health insurance market will be felt in full: Huge numbers of employers will stop offering such insurance. Many more will sharply raise the worker contribution, or drastically cut benefits. In Health Affairs, Thomas Buchmueller, Sherry A. Glied, Anne Royalty, and Katherine Swartz estimate that a full 20 million Americans will lose their current coverage as a result of the tax hike. 20 million. And they say that’s a low estimate: "The effect could be much larger…these estimates account only for the price effect of eliminating the tax preference; they do not account for the number of low-wage workers who might lose employer-sponsored insurance when employers are no longer bound by the nondiscrimination rules, nor do they capture the impact of breaking up existing risk pools."
Yes John McCain’s health care plan will cause 20 million Americans to lose their coverage. Amazing.






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Zed!
Young Ezra!!
I was really happy that Stephanopolous mentioned yesterday in his interview with McCain that employers would no longer be able to deduct healthcare benefits. Which in effect makes them taxable income. People need to hear that.
McCain, of course, just muttered and grumbled.