Something for Nothing
By DAVID BROOKS
NYT
On May 12, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on health care reform. There was a long table of 13 experts, and a vast majority agreed that ending the tax exemption on employer-provided health benefits should be part of a reform package.
They gave the reasons that experts — on right or left — always give for supporting this idea. The exemption is a giant subsidy to the affluent. It drives up health care costs by encouraging luxurious plans and by separating people from the consequences of their decisions. Furthermore, repealing the exemption could raise hundreds of billions of dollars, which could be used to expand coverage to the uninsured.
Democratic Senator Ron Wyden piped up and noted that he and Republican Senator Robert Bennett have a plan that repeals the exemption and provides universal coverage. The Wyden-Bennett bill has 14 bipartisan co-sponsors and the Congressional Budget Office has found that it would be revenue-neutral.
The Finance Committee’s chairman, Senator Max Baucus, looked exasperated. With that haughty and peremptory manner that they teach in Committee Chairman School, he told Wyden and the world that this idea was not going to happen.
(More here.)
NYT
On May 12, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on health care reform. There was a long table of 13 experts, and a vast majority agreed that ending the tax exemption on employer-provided health benefits should be part of a reform package.
They gave the reasons that experts — on right or left — always give for supporting this idea. The exemption is a giant subsidy to the affluent. It drives up health care costs by encouraging luxurious plans and by separating people from the consequences of their decisions. Furthermore, repealing the exemption could raise hundreds of billions of dollars, which could be used to expand coverage to the uninsured.
Democratic Senator Ron Wyden piped up and noted that he and Republican Senator Robert Bennett have a plan that repeals the exemption and provides universal coverage. The Wyden-Bennett bill has 14 bipartisan co-sponsors and the Congressional Budget Office has found that it would be revenue-neutral.
The Finance Committee’s chairman, Senator Max Baucus, looked exasperated. With that haughty and peremptory manner that they teach in Committee Chairman School, he told Wyden and the world that this idea was not going to happen.
(More here.)
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