Not So Confusing

Over at Atrios's place, Echidne ponders the Republican health care tax Sunday Show shuffle:

Over My Dead Body.

That's what several Republican politicians appear to be saying about the proposal to fund some of the health care reform by an extra tax on those families which earn more than $350,000 per year. Senator John Kyl, the Republican Whip:

"We're in a recession," he told CNN. "It would be a job killer. It would be exactly the wrong thing to do any time, but especially when we're in the middle of a recession.

Mmm. Yet Senator Lamar Alexander is all for tax increases as long as they only affect employees' health benefits:

"I'm willing to stop giving tax deductions to people for Cadillac health insurance plans in order to give everybody a chance to buy their own health care insurance and not add a penny to the debt. I think that would be a good way," Alexander said.

Confusing.

As I said last night, this is not confusing at all if you remember that the first tax proposal would be funding the public option (which the Republicans are doing everything to destroy) while the second one would be strictly used to maximize profits of the existing health care system by pushing Americans into being underinsured in order to avoid paying taxes (which the Republicans really, really think is a great idea.)

Example time. If you pay $6,000 a year in health care and never go to the hospital, you're the guy the insurance companies want. Let's say Lamar Alexander's plan there limits health care deductions for individuals there to only the first $5,000. You get a cheaper free market plan to avoid paying taxes, say, $5,000 a year in benefits instead but the coverage you get is really half as much when you read the fine print, the insurance companies are going to be fighting for you.

Should you need to go to the hospital, that cheaper plan is going to probably bankrupt you. Should you not need it, you're still pretty much pure profit to the insurance company. They can say "Well now, you should have read the fine print. We expect our customers to make informed choices under this plan, and you chose a plan that didn't meet your needs." Not their fault, but your fault (or the fault of the people who passed that damn "health care reform", which would be the Dems.)

So yes, the Republicans are very much trying to sandbag health care reform while getting as much money as they can for their clients: health insurance giants. Some Democrats are right there with them.