Matthew Yglesias comments today on something that really deserves far more attention than it is getting (actually, it has gotten almost no attention…): John McCain’s plan to tax our benefits. As Yglesias points out,
at the moment compensation you receive from your employer in the form of money is subject to income tax, but compensation you receive from your employer in the form of employer contributions to health insurance premiums is not taxed. McCain proposes to change this and start subjecting those benefits to taxation.
He quotes James Kvaal, who says that
McCain’s plan “would tax workers’ health benefits, which are largely tax-free today,” thus increasing the amount of tax people need to pay, which is a tax increase in any common sense understanding of the term.
It’s not just that McCain wants to tax workers’ health benefits, which is, no matter what the McCain campaign says, a tax on middle-income people at a time that he wants to cut taxes for the rich. He’s also making healthcare less affordable for working people at a time when too many people in the United States are uninsured or underinsured.
Hank Kalet 
Universal health care is long overdue in this country. I would prefer one payer and take the private insurance companies out of the equation but that will not happen with regressive Gopers foaming at the mouth. So I guess I will have to live with Obama\’s plan which does keep the private insurers part of the system. All the rich industrialized democracies have some form of universal health care except the USA. It\’s not just Canada and the UK. Truman proposed universal health care in 1947 but he was overruled by the GOP and the medical-industrial complex. If McCain wins, nothing will happen with health care and even if Obama wins, he will have to overcome GOP filibustering and the lobbying of the vast medical-industrial complex which will fight universal health care tooth and nail with the spleen thrown in for good measure. In that case, we will have to wait until the pain, anguish and agony of lack of health care grows so large that even the right wing filth can\’t ignore it. Oh wait, right wingers lack empathy as long as they have health insurance but once they lose their health insurance for any number of reasons they might start screaming, too.
If you run back the history lesson, I know that facts confuse folks, but going into WW2, when the Socialists really stuck it to the American people, they \”froze\” wages and prices. Now we know that \”freezes\” only are for the little people. Business, who had to attract the right people, came up with \”benefits\” as a way around wage and price controls. Long story short, we are stuck with the mess. As an employee of a big company, my benefits are tax deductible to them. SOOOO, while the salary dollars are constant, I and the company do better letting the company deduct them. My salary plus the company\’s tax deductible benefits is greater than my salary plus the company\’s benefit minus the incremental taxes on those benefits. Argh!So, we wind up with the perversion that my \”benefits\” (i.e., my health care) is tied to my employment. If I get fired, I lose my health care. It makes the employee tied to the \”company store\”. As crazy as it sounds, making the benefits taxible, is the FIRST step to decoupling benefits from employment. When the \”benefits\” are not deductible to ANYONE, then I can buy my benefits independent of my employer. The marketplace will then create \”Insurance pools\” around fraternal organizations, Churches, or other odd groups of people.THe Socialists create the problems then complain when unwinding the Gordian knot they create causes pain.I know personally one fellow, who had had cancer, lived in fear of losing his job. And another woman, with a sick child, who lost her job and benefits. Bottom line: Better to remove the tax code from the equation completely.It\’s not a GOP or Democrat issue. It\’s unwinding the mistakes of past Gooferment Socialists!And, highly compensated executives get to use \”benefits\” as a tax dodge! Little people, not so lucky.
Yeah, yeah yeah, those evil socialists have destroyed America. Just leave it to the rich capitalists to save us, they have our best interests at heart and I\’m Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli). Blah, blah, blah, the socialists screwed everything up, government is evil, the capitalists are saints, blah, blah. Jaysus what mindless drivel. Hello! Insurance companies are in the business of denying care, refusing to honor claims and just playing games with the poor \”beneficiary.\” A neighbor of mine was a self-employed contractor. He could do everything, plumbing, electrical, carpentry, masonry, siding, landscaping, the whole enchilada. He was always busy and never lacked for work but it wasn\’t enough. He had a pre-existing condition and so he could not get adequate health coverage for himself. Supplying health care for his family was killing him financially and what if a medical catastrophe occurred. He would lose everything including his house that he had renovated years ago. So he had to give up his wonderful business and work for the Toll Brothers where he could participate in group health insurance. He was lucky because he had some friends at Toll Brothers who put in a good word for him and he had a good reputation as a hard worker. Lack of adequate health insurance forced him to work for a large employer to get insurance. He and his family would be covered. In just a few months, he developed lung cancer which spread to his brain and he was dead at age 47. His wife was a stay at home mom and they still had a child in middle school. At least she will get survivors benefits from Social Security until the child turns 18. Oh the horrors, it\’s socialism again. It doesn\’t take much to be labeled a socialist in bizarro crazy land. I salute the small business man and the self-employed entrepreneur and I\’m also for one payer health insurance.