Thoughts on President Bush's Health Insurance Proposal

A few weeks back in a book review, I promised some more thoughts on the President's proposal re: health insurance, so here it is. Basically, the proposal is that people who buy private insurance would get a substantial tax cut, whereas anyone who gets insurance through their employer (like me) would get a substantial tax increase. The first thing I don't like is the administration's dishonesty regarding the proposal. At first, they tried to claim that it was not a tax hike, until several prominent bloggers and organizations reviewed in detail the nuts and bolts of the proposal and found it was exactly that. Any government proposal gets a skeptical eye from me, and that goes double when they start off lying about the details.

The last thing people who are in the middle class need is another tax increase, especially one for something they need as badly as health insurance. If fairness is at issue here, then why not simply allow people who get insurance through their employer to deduct that value of their policy from their taxable income? The corporations already get to deduct the cost of the health insurance for their employees, so why shouldn't employees be afforded the same courtesy? The government has plenty of tax revenue already, and they don't need anymore...they should learn to live like the rest of us and operate on a reasonable budget instead of reaching into my back pocket when the ever-expanding government leviathan needs to be fed again. Since this is a tax hike wolf in tax cut sheep's clothing, I definitely oppose this plan, and I hope very much that it falls prey to Presidential and Congressional election year politics and never makes it to the President's desk.