If your employer, or former employer, provides you with health insurance, that is a benefit you are receiving which is now not taxable. At one time, employers paid the full cost which was a much bigger benefit than it is now when almost every employee is paying part of the cost. Under the proposed plan — not law — those receiving benefits of more than $15,000, as I understand it, would be taxed — on the value of the benefit greater than $15,000.
Supposedly, the revenue that this plan would generate would/could be used to provide coverage for those without it. How far would $33.3 billion a year go to do that? Make the math easy. If each family got $10,000 worth of coverage, it would cost $10 billion just for 1,000 families! In other words, we’re talking about drops in a bucket!
Of course, $33.3 billion per year is nothing to sneeze at! But it is nothing as far as doing something about those who do not have health insurance. At best, it might be described as tinkering around the edges. Eventually, enough people will be without health insurance, and something will be done. But I don’t think I’ll live long enough to see that.
Anyway, how do you require someone to buy health insurance? What do you do if they don’t? Do they go to jail? Where do they go to get it? At what price? If they have a preexisting medical condition, they won’t be able to afford it at the price insurance companies want. Do the insurance companies go to jail, too?
Another typical "nothing" Bush idea!
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