Pre-Tax Employee Benefits Might End

[ImWithStupid]

So now we are going to be taxed on the health care benefit our employer provides, so we can pay for the health care that other people get for free?

Workers' Health Benefits Eyed for Taxation

Revenue Would Fund Expansion of Coverage

By Lori Montgomery


Washington Post Staff Writer


Thursday, March 12, 2009; Page D01

With President Obama's plan to tax the rich to pay for health care facing deep skepticism on Capitol Hill, key lawmakers are pressing a different way to raise money: taxing the health benefits workers receive from their employers.

Since companies began offering group health insurance on a large scale during World War II, the value of that benefit has never been counted as income, reducing workers' taxable earnings by an average of $9,000 a year for family coverage.

This week, White House budget director Peter Orszag said taxing employer benefits was among several ideas that "most firmly should remain on the table." White House economic adviser Jason Furman called for an end to the so-called "employer exclusion" before he joined the administration. Meanwhile, some congressional Democrats say the White House has signaled that Obama would accept a tax on employer benefits as long as he didn't have to propose it himself.

washingtonpost.com
What a coward. "I'm for it as long as my names not on it."

 

[Ahhlee]

Whaaaaaaa????

I don't know how much more "change" I can take.

 

[RegisteredAndEducated]

this sucks...

thanks chi.

 

[Old Salt]

The way I see it, there are two probabilities if health benefits are taxed:

1. Health care being taxed, fewer people will accept employer health benefits.

2. And since fewer people will have health insurance through work, there will be more people lining up for the government health plan.

Creating customers.

Will there be any exemptions? Such as government provided health insurance for people like police, fire fighters, or military (those occupations which are inherently dangerous)?