sweeeeeeeeeet
One reason why insurance costs are so high...
"Larry Glasscock, chairman, president and CEO of Indianapolis-based Anthem Inc., will receive $42.5 million as part of a proposed stock and cash incentive deal."
http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2004/04/05/daily29.html
this new tax he is proposing on employer provided health insurance - if it passes - is going to be a disaster politically.
The devil is in the details. Will this benefit phase out if you have a decent middle-class income or above? Probably.
Will it phase out if you are subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax? Probably.
I've seen specialized tax cuts enacted over my lifetime, and only two of them made any important difference to my income tax payments: The Reagan Tax Cut, and the first Bush Tax Cut.
But it's virtually certain that the Democrats will not allow this tax benefit to apply to "the rich," meaning almost anyone who earns a living and pays taxes.
....propose a tax deduction of $7,500 for individuals and $15,000 for families regardless of whether they buy their own health insurance or receive medical coverage at work.
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This is sadly humorous. I am 63 years old. I have to buy my own insurance that is a mediocre HMO plan for my wife and myself. It costs me over $2000 per month. That is over $24,000 per year. I cannot get Medicare for another two years and my rates just went up 25% this year because I got another year older. Sorry Mr. President -- your tax deduction sucks -- so I may save $6000 per year, and I am still getting screwed by the HMO plan who know they have to milk everything out of me before I can get Medicare and that is what they are doing.
Really sucks.
Maybe I am stupid, but I don't quite see the benefit in this. I pay a portion of my own premium for employer health benefits out of my before tax income. How will this benefit me?
It seems that this could be detrimental.
Companies could drop health plans because individuals would have access to the tax deduction. A boon for companies.
Insurance companies would benefit by providing individual, rather than group, plans. Individual policies derive greater premiums.
Employees could see their company dropping insurance coverage, and they could be forced into individual, rather than group, plans at increased premiums.
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CAUTION: This could turn out to be as big a fiasco for the employee as the Medicare Prescription Drug bill was for seniors.
I believe the 'Law of unintended Consequenses' is about to shift into overdrive
I knew there was a catch here somewhere.
Can Dubya really have proposed something as asinine as this???
That would be great! I pay almost $400.00 a month for insurance, but I get 100% coverage, so it*s really not that bad. I would rather not have to pay insurance but an operation and a stay in the hospital will pay for many years of insurance premiums, so I just consider it a necessary evil.
What some of you guys seem to be missing, is that probably most of the people without health insurance don't pay taxes anyway.
What good is a deduction going to do them? For it to help the uninsured, it will have to turn into a tax credit which they get back.
Well, the best and the cheapest he could do would be expanding ERISA eligibility [both for the size of employer[?} and for the time one copiuld purchase it by paying out of one's own pocket].
This is a Republican plan ... how?
Further, what happens to people who cannot buy medical insurance at all, or only at very high prices, because of pre-existing medical conditions?
Thanks for the post.
Been advocating this for years.
Perfect sense, which probably means it will never happen.
That comes to $958/month. That is staggering.
I had a friend who was a laid-off airline pilot. He was offered COBRA (at close to $900/month), but found a policy for a family of four for about $400/month.
Note the airline pilot position was a union job, with union negotiate health coverage.
My employers (non-union) have offered polices at about $500-$600/month for a typical family, and paid about half of that expense.
Bush's proposal would tax (I assume as imputed income) employer provided policies over $15,000/year ($1,250/month). Most policies at this level only occur in union jobs.
This article points out how State of Michigan employees get policies of up to $16,000/year.
Morton Kondracke pointed out on Fox News tonight the same is true of GM and Ford auto workers in Michigan, which is why this Bush proposal is dead on arrival in Congress.
Now realizing how the real beneficiaries of employer provided health insurance are Democrat activist union members, I wish Clinton's proposal to require employer provided health insurance be considered imputed income had passed. I can also understand why it never even made it into a proposal.
The Demonrats are complete hypocrites on this issue.