President Bush will propose in his State of the Union address a tax break for people who buy their own health insurance and a limit on how much coverage individuals can receive tax free at work.
The proposal to be announced Tuesday offers a tax deduction to people who purchase coverage and urges those with generous plans to either embrace cheaper insurance or pay taxes on part of it, according to a Bush administration official familiar with the proposals.
If passed by Congress, the plan would be the first time that workers could get a tax break for buying their own insurance. At the same time, it would be the first time that some employer-provided health care benefits could be taxed.
This is how Republicans operate: They cut taxes on the wealthiest individuals, give huge tax breaks to corporations, then announce benefits for one group of working people that penalizes the other, rather than seeking funding from those who have already benefitted mightily from Republican policies. As long as they can keep you looking at your peers and down the ladder for someone to blame for your own slipping economic position, perhaps you won't notice the huge golden parachutes given to corporate executives as a reward for running their companies into the ground.
I have excellent medical coverage through my employer for which I pay $3,770/year, which represents slightly less than 1/3 the entire cost of the premium. We do not have the redundancy of secondary coverage. So what figure exactly is Mr. Bush planning to tax? The amount I pay or the total cost of the policy? And is this designed to help those who do not have employer-based health insurance buy policies, or is it designed to coerce workers into accepting, or even demanding, lower-cost, lower-service policies from their employers in order to save on taxes?
Don't tell me, I already know the answer.
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