• Barack Obama,  Health

    Obama Considers Taxing Worker’s Health Care Benefits

    March 12, 2009 /
    Obama Campaign Ad: “It Gets Worse” highlights that first we learned John McCain wanted to tax health care benefits to pay for part of his health care plan, and now the Wall Street Journal reports that McCain would pay for the rest of his plan by making “major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid,” eight hundred and eighty two billion from Medicare alone. We simply can’t afford John McCain.

    Say it isn’t so. Obama who heavily criticised John McCain just a few months ago about his health care plan is considering the EXACT same thing – taxing worker’s health benefits.

    So far, administration officials have been careful not to endorse the idea, which Obama blasted as a major tax increase last year after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made it the centerpiece of his presidential campaign’s health plan. But the president hasn’t slammed the door on it, either.

    This week, White House budget director Peter Orszag said taxing employer benefits was among several ideas that “most firmly should remain on the table.” White House economic adviser Jason Furman called for an end to the so-called “employer exclusion” before he joined the administration. Meanwhile, some congressional Democrats say the White House has signaled that Obama would accept a tax on employer benefits as long as he didn’t have to propose it himself.

    Flap remembers these campaign ads tearing up the airwaves in Nevada over the summer. But, here we have…. Another case where Obama’s campaign statements come with an expiration date.

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