If you have severe health problems or chronic disabilities
that require significant out of pocket expense Sen. Baucus and many Senate Dems
are about to add insult to injury. Under current law, expenses for health care
devises ? wheel chairs, hearing aids, seeing eye dogs, crutches, etc. ? and prescribed
drugs can be deducted from taxes for all amounts above 7 percent of adjusted
gross income. Now for one who is truly interested in trying to make health care
more affordable the obvious change to make would be to lower that threshold or
maybe to eliminate it completely, making it possible to pay for all such
expenses with pre-tax money. This could be done through the use of some form of
tax-free health care savings account. But Baucus and company, in spite of all
the rhetoric about affordability, are proposing to raise this threshold to 10
percent.
This is nothing more than a naked money grab at the expense of those
who, in terms of healthcare, are the most vulnerable. Most obviously and
directly, it will raise the cost of health care by eliminating a third of the
current tax deduction. But more subtly, for some people, the difference in
their income at the 7 percent threshold and the 10 percent threshold will push
them into a higher tax bracket, effectively increasing their marginal tax rate.
And notice, we are not talking about the highly reviled rich, who by definition
are already in the top tax bracket. These are, again by definition, low and moderate-income
people who are currently paying taxes at rates below the top marginal rate. This
is clearly just another example of the progressive left showing their true
colors. When it comes to a choice between helping ?working families??their alleged
constituency?and expanding the power and scope of the state, it will be the
working folks who get thrown under the bus every time.
