The beginning of the end of employer-provided health insurance?

docwebster's latest post, which you can find here, references a Daily Kos article which in turn references a Washington Post article discussing tax changes proposed by the Bush administration.  (That link should be registration-free, thanks to BugMeNot and the WaPo "Print This Article" trick.  Use it before they catch on, I guess.)  WaPo says the overhaul "would drastically cut, if not eliminate, taxes on savings and investment".

Just after the election [Bush] signaled that tax policy would be a centerpiece of his domestic agenda, reiterating his pledge to name a bipartisan panel to draft a fundamental tax reform proposal.  That sent conservatives scurrying into either the flat tax or sales tax camp to muster political momentum.

But before the tax panel is even named, administration officials have begun dialing back expectations that they will move to scrap the current graduated income tax for another system.

Instead the administration plans to push major amendments that would shield interest, dividends and capitals [sic] gains from taxation, expand tax breaks for business investment and take other steps intended to simplify the system and encourage economic growth, according to several people who are advising the White House or are familiar with the deliberations.

The capsule summary:  The administration wants to create large savings accounts which can shelter deposits from taxes on investment gains, and eliminate the AMT.  To pay for these, they want to eliminate the Federal tax deduction for state and local income taxes, and the business tax deduction for employer-sponsored health insurance.

This will eliminate the only incentive employers have to provide health insurance, and increase most working-class folks' tax burdens by up to 8% depending on state, in order to pay for eliminating a tax designed to help make sure the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes and for giving them yet another way to shelter even more of their income from taxes.  Without that corporate tax incentive, it's likely a lot of people are going to lose their employer-provided medical insurance -- and that probably means a lot of people aren't going to be able to afford medical care, particularly since they're going to have less money to buy it with.  (For example, the last insurance company I applied to for coverage didn't merely laugh and name an absurd premium, they flatly stated they would not cover me, period.  Station wagons recur, you know.)

Granted, some of what's being proposed does sound good at first light:

Pamela F. Olson, a former Bush Treasury official in close contact with administration tax planners, said the president will pursue a tax system where all income -- whether from wages, dividends, capital gains or interest -- is taxed only once.  That would mean eliminating taxes on dividends and capital gains paid out of fully taxed corporate profits.  Most investment gains are currently taxed at 15 percent.

I'm not quite sure how he reconciles that with eliminating the state and local income tax deduction.  Sounds to me like he's trading investment income being taxed twice at the Federal level for all income being taxed twice at the state/local level.  This is going to shift the tax burden away from big investors, and towards people who don't have any money to spare for investing.

"The president believes the tax code should be simpler, fairer, and more conducive to economic growth and he looks forward to appointing an advisory panel to review options for reforming the tax code," White House spokeswoman Clare Buchan said.

Fairer to whom?  The article looks to me like the biggest benefits are going to go to corporations and big investors.  (Somehow, this doesn't come as a big surprise.)  Unless the "lower individual and corporate tax rates" are enough lower to offset the cost of medical insurance, I think this will hurt most ordinary people more than it helps them.  Tax-free health savings accounts are all very well, but not much use if you have no money to put in them.

See this comment in docwebster's journal for Scott Bateman's take on the proposed "reform".

"Apparently, the president's health care plan for us is 'Don't Get Sick.  EVER.'"

Thought for the day

I don't recall where I heard it, possibly on the radio, but I recall hearing somewhere a while back (maybe a month or two) that some rock musicians had gotten out of the "mainstream commercial" music business and gone back to "their roots in" country music "so that they could write and sing about issues that matter".  For some reason, I flashed back to that comment this morning as I was getting into the shower.

And you know, there's really only one thing I can say:

"If you think rock music can't be about important issues, you just haven't been paying attention, boy."

There are no ... well, few words

"Creation Science Fair"

Notable excerpts:

Cassidy Turnbull (grade 5) [...] tried to feed her uncle bananas, but he declined to eat them.  Cassidy has conclusively shown that her uncle is no monkey.

"Pokemon Prove Evolutionism Is False" - Paul Sanborn (grade 4)

Patricia Lewis (grade 8) did an experiment to see if life can evolve from non-life.  Patricia placed all the non-living ingredients of life - carbon (a charcoal briquet), purified water, and assorted minerals (a multi-vitamin) - into a sealed glass jar.  The jar was left undisturbed, being exposed only to sunlight, for three weeks.  [...]  No life evolved.  This shows that life cannot come from non-life through natural processes.

"Rocks Can't Evolve, Where Did They Come From Mr. Darwin?" - Anna Reed (grade 6)

Jonathan Goode (grade 7) applied findings from many fields of science to support his conclusion that God designed women for homemaking [....]

Barefoot and pregnant, huh, Jonathan?  Among Jonathan's carefully-derived Creation-scientific conclusions: the observed fact that wages are lower for women worker than for "normal" workers (what, Jonathan, you're saying women are abnormal?) proves that women are incapable of working as well as men and therefore deserve lower pay.  And then there's the Noah's ark proof of concept that should result in a prosecution for animal cruelty.

I'm almost, but not quite, speechless.  We expect people taught this way to be able to function in a modern technological society?!?  The Dark Ages are alive and well in rural America.

Update:

General consensus seems to be running that this page is actually a hoax.