Legal Commentary

The Dishonest Selling Of The Excise Tax

By Big Tent Democrat

Bob Herbert:

If even the plan’s proponents do not expect policyholders to pay the tax, how will it raise $150 billion in a decade? Great question. [. . .] According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, less than 18 percent of the revenue will come from the tax itself. The rest of the $150 billion, more than 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.

Can you believe it? [. . .] A survey of business executives by Mercer, a human resources consulting firm, found that only 16 percent of respondents said they would convert the savings from a reduction in health benefits into higher wages for employees. Yet proponents of the tax are holding steadfast to the belief that nearly all would do so.

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.

(Emphasis supplied.) Herbert is right. See also Glenn Greenwald and Atrios ("None of the benefit reductions are going to be converted to wages.") FTR, I think Atrios overstates the case. Some portion will be converted to wages imo.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 29, 2009 (boomark / email).