I don’t know why this has not been all over the press yet… but read this piece from The Hill.
This is backed up by the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation’sevaluation of the McCain and Barack Obama health plans:
* Reform the tax code to eliminate the exclusion of the value of health insurance plans offered by employers from workers’ taxable income.
How does this work? The Hill again:
The value of the typical plan provided by an employer to a family is $12,106, of which the employer pays $8,824, and the worker pays the remaining $3,282. The median household income is $44,389, which places most American families in the 15 percent income tax bracket.
McCain wants to add the employer’s cost — an additional $8,824 — to that middle class family’s income, then tax it. The hit to the average family is 15 percent of the McCain-added income — $1,323 more in income taxes.
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This comparison was published last June and the information has been available for a while… the press, however, has pretty much ignored it and McCain has hidden this information from his web site and and his promotional material.
there’s no reference to this on his website? could he pretend he never meant this, if word gets out, since he has no documentation?
It’s been out there for a while. McSame plans a $5000 tax credit on your employer’s contribution.
Of course, with the median employer’s contribution being much more than $5000 as the article points out, it is indeed going to be a tax increase on the difference for tens of millions of middle class Americans.
This is of course to encourage you to shop around for a cheaper private plan with far fewer benefits, since the money YOU spend will be tax deductible, or what it really means is that the plan you’ll be able to find for what you’re currently paying for health care contributions will be, oh, about 30% as good. Have fun with McSameCare.
The fact that businesses are getting their health care contribution taxes cut to zero will surely mean that these businesses will create more jobs and raise wages for workers instead of pocketing the difference for executive pay and stockholders.
I mean American businesses wouldn’t do that, would they? Just look at Wall Street.