Bob Herbert has discovered that the so-called Cadillac Tax, which Jonathan Gruber refuses to even acknowledge is a tax (it only removes a tax exemption after all), will hit the middle class.
Proponents of the tax use arguments that sound a lot like the pro-market ideas they oppose. Herbert summarizes their claim: “If policyholders have to pay more out of their own pockets, they will be more careful ? that is to say, more reluctant ? to access health services.” The Joint Commission on Taxation expects most of the money, “82 percent of it, will come from the income taxes paid by workers who have been given pay raises by employers who will have voluntarily handed over the money they saved by offering their employees less valuable health insurance plans.”
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is incredulous that employers would offer higher pay to their workers. If the JCT argues that all of the forgone insurance premiums will translate dollar for dollar into higher pay, that claim does defy credulity. Companies would likely convert some of the savings into lower prices for customers or another valuable purpose – not simply to higher profits as union bosses claim.
Herbert, who has long criticized the president’s focus on health care instead of jobs, is right when he states, “The tax on health benefits is being sold to the public dishonestly as something that will affect only the rich, and it makes a mockery of President Obama?s repeated pledge that if you like the health coverage you have now, you can keep it. Those who believe this is a good idea should at least have the courage to be straight about it with the American people.”
Instead of an honest, open debate, we got a Senate bill at the last minute that was drafted to get votes even if one part of the bill conflicts with another part. The conference bill will be crafted in the West Wing of the White House, though still with no cameras and likely no more sense of what is in it until months or years later as it takes effect.
Better ideas are still available if either chamber of Congress comes to its senses soon enough. Kay Hagan could still live up to the moderate and fiscal conservative labels she has unjustifiably claimed if she is part of that reawakening.
