I'm seriously having Fun with McSame's Tax Plan

Source : The New England Journal of Medicine

McCain and Obama Plans for U.S. Health Care Reform

Its centerpiece is a change in the tax treatment of health insurance. Currently, workers do not pay taxes on health insurance premiums paid by their employers.

Nobody knows how effective repealing the tax exclusion would be in controlling costs, but if it turns out not to be a magic bullet, the plan lacks other mechanisms for reliably slowing spending. Prevention, better care for chronic conditions, and enhanced competition represent aspirations rather than concrete policies for controlling costs.

It would deregulate the insurance market (Geez - deregulation has worked out so well in the S&L, Banking and Mortgage markets)

The McCain plan could consequently trigger a move from comprehensive insurance toward thinner coverage policies that shift costs onto sicker patients. Moreover, some employers, particularly smaller businesses, might stop offering insurance if the tax benefits of employer-sponsored insurance were eliminated. As a result, some currently insured workers could lose coverage.

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/359/8/781

"Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes. And my opponent can't make that pledge, and here's why. For the first time in American history, John McCain wants to tax your health-care benefits. Apparently, Senator McCain doesn't think it's enough that health care premiums have doubled, he thinks that you should have to pay taxes on them, too. That's a $3.6 trillion tax increase potentially on middle-class families. And that would eventually leave tens of millions of you paying higher taxes or losing your benefits. That's his idea of change." - Barack Obama, Sept 12, 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aa4ipe4fhU&eurl=http://dailykos.com