Ken’s Take: I’m a strong proponent of putting all employer paid benefits — health insurance included — on employees taxable W2s and providing a liberal deduction ( say, the lesser of $5,000 per dependent or the taxpayer’s cash outlay.) Unfortunately, the UAW and SEIU don’t like the idea …
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Excerpted from Washington Post: Obama in the Wilsonian Tradition, March 11, 2010
The bold move that the nation needs is a transition from the irrationality of employer-provided health insurance.
Employer-paid insurance is central to what David Gratzer of the Manhattan Institute calls “the 12 cent problem.”
That is how much of every health care dollar is spent by the person receiving the care.
Hence Americans’ buffet mentality — we paid at the door to the health care feast, so let’s consume all we can.
John McCain had the correct prescription for health care during the 2008 campaign.
He proposed serious change — taxing employer-provided health care as what it indisputably is, compensation, and giving tax credits, including refundable ones, for individuals to purchase insurance.
Instead, ObamaCare will subsidize insurance purchases for families of four earning almost $100,000 a year … a redundant reminder of unseriousness about the nation’s fiscal mismanagement.
Full article:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/11/in_the_wilsonian_tradition_104733.html
The Homa Files 
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