The President's new health care plan, "pitched as taxing the well-off to provide help for the uninsured, is actually a carefully constructed scheme to further undermine the employer-based group insurance system," according to Merrill Goozner, top-notch journalist who now runs the Integrity in Science Project for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Goozner continues on his blog, "It provides a powerful tax incentive to encourage the well-off and healthy to abandon their employers' plans in favor of the Health Savings Accounts/individually-purchased catastrophic insurance plans favored by free market enthusiasts."
But what about the 46-million uninsured? "It has nothing to do with insuring the uninsured, since the benefits are far less than what is needed to effectively move them into the insurance pool," writes Goozner.
Posted by schwitz at January 22, 2007 08:18 AM | TrackBackBy simply "adding" current health care costs to W-2 wages something else happens. Employees will pay Social Security on that benefit. Employers will also see a 6% instant ccost rise. Then there is mandated tax called Workers Compensation and unemployment taxes charged to Companies based on W-2. All in all a very expensive plan to the currently insured to MAYBE pick up some uninsured. This will help Social Security by billions though. Is that the hidden agenda?
Posted by: kevin at January 24, 2007 08:54 AMI wanted to give you a heads up that I've just posted an interesting interview with Merrill Goozner from GoozNews on the topic of Canadian drug imports and other Big Pharma issues. If you'd consider adding us to your blogroll or some link love, I'd be very grateful :)
http://edrugsearch.com/edsblog/five-questions-with-merrill-goozner/
Take care,
Cary