| Page 2 of 2 < |
President to Propose Shifting Health Funds to States
|
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
Democrats and some business, labor and consumer groups, however, have called for the federal government to play a more active role in expanding coverage to the uninsured, through increased spending on the federal-state Children's Health Insurance Program.
Some Democrats favor expanding Medicare to allow people under 65 to enroll. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has proposed doing away with employer-sponsored care and replacing it with a centrally financed system of health insurance for everyone.
The plan calls for employer-provided health care benefits to be counted as taxable income for the first time. To offset the impact on taxpayers, the White House proposes to create a standard health-care deduction -- set at $15,000 for families and $7,500 for individuals.
Families who receive employer-provided benefits worth more than that amount when the program would begin in 2009 -- approximately 30 million people, according to White House officials -- would see their tax bills go up. But the vast majority of families with employer-provided coverage -- more than 100 million families -- would see a reduction in their tax bills.
Meanwhile, the plan would give a tax break for the first time to the approximately 17 million families who purchase health care on their own. And it would induce an estimated 3 million families who currently are uninsured to purchase a health plan, said Katherine Baicker, a member of the president's Council of Economic Advisers.
Giving millions of families a large new tax deduction, even while raising taxes on employees with so-called "gold-plated" health care plans, would initially cost the government million in lost taxes, Baicker said, though she declined to provide the cost of the plan.
However, those revenues would be recovered within the first decade, Baicker said, because the deduction would grow at the same rate as inflation, instead of growing at the much faster pace of the cost of health care.
Some groups, such as America's Health Insurance Plans, the health insurance industry association, praised Bush for making health care a priority but reserved judgment on his proposals until more details are available.
"It's so new, and we're just getting our hands around it," said Karen Ignagni, the group's president.
Jay Timmons, senior vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, expressed similar sentiments.
"The specific details of the plan are key," said Timmons, whose member companies employ more than 14 million workers and provide health insurance for many of them. "The ambitious plan. . . . will impact employers and employees alike."
