Detroit, we have a problem. We're suffering serious economic pain at a time when health care costs in our state are going through the roof. The one million Michiganians who don't have health insurance are one accident or one serious illness away from financial catastrophe.
It's well past time for that to change. Fortunately, Congress is finally beginning to grapple with a way to give all U.S. citizens access to affordable health insurance.
Unions support affordable health care for all, as do most Americans.
The problem is how to pay for it.
Max Baucus of Montana, the powerful chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is suggesting an enormous new tax on employer-sponsored health insurance.
Many Americans, including those who have employer-provided coverage, believe a public, government-sponsored plan is a sensible way to make health insurance available to all -- including people who can't get it through their employer and who don't qualify for Medicaid or Medicare. But a tax hike on health benefits to pay for a public plan would be a poison pill for middle-class wage-earners to swallow.
Most Americans are deeply offended by the prospect of such a tax. A recent national survey by Lake Research Partners shows 80 percent of likely voters oppose taxing health benefits.
Candidate Obama called his opponent's proposal to tax employer-sponsored health care "the largest middle-class tax increase in history."
His opposition to taxing employer-based health insurance was a big reason the Teamsters supported him for president.
For all those reasons, it seems extremely unlikely that a tax on employer-sponsored health insurance will ever become a reality. Or, let us hope.
The premiums of employer-sponsored health insurance already comprise a large part of many families' expenses and employers' costs
A tax on health benefits would place the biggest burden on people who are older or sicker, women of childbearing age, employees of small businesses and residents in high-cost communities.
It would touch off a stampede to the public plan, undermining the entire system.
There is no reason that revenue to pay for health care reform has to come out of the current health care system. Middle-class taxpayers just gave Wall Street the biggest bailout in history. Wall Street can well afford to return the favor.
Eliminating subsidies and preferences for the wealthiest Americans would go a long way to pay for the health care reform this country so desperately needs.
Just last week, President Obama suggested a limit on itemized deductions for the wealthiest people in this country. That would raise about $270 billion over 10 years.
There are other good suggestions. To name a few: extend the 2.9 percent Medicare tax to all adjusted gross income so the wealthy pay their fair share; impose a surtax on the Medicare tax on the wealthiest Americans; and limit tax deductions for stock options and the write-off for intangible assets.
Let's make sure the uninsured get health care coverage, but not at the expense of hard-working American families and individuals who have employer-sponsored plans.
Middle-class families -- the backbone of this country -- deserve better.
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