Open Left

Not a rebuttal

While I agree with all you state I do want to point out some counterpoints.

1) Right now health benefits are tax deductible if they come from an employer, but are not if purchased any other way.  This is a huge, huge problem.  While the best solution is to provide the same tax benefit to anyone who purchases insurance, I would rather drop the current taxbreak then keep this unfair discrepancy in place.  

The marketplace has tends to evolve around the conditions of its environment; this current policy is one of the reasons we have our current lame system of employer-based health care.

2) Something needs to pay for healthcare.  While a progressive tax is much better than a regressive or flat tax, the healthcare itself is even more important.  In Europe they have far greater equity then we do despite fairly regressive tax policy.  The reason is on the spending side.

So while I completely agree that the plan should be paid for with a progressive tax and strongly believe private individuals should have the same tax breaks when purchasing insurance currently enjoyed by corporations, these aren't core principles to me.  (More like outer core or inner mantle principles.)

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by: Mark Matson @ Fri Jun 05, 2009 at 15:02:57 PM CDT