From: session@seq.uncwil.edu (Zack C. Sessions)
Subject: Re: Taxing medical benefits ... NOT
Organization: Univ. of North Carolina @ Wilmington
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 02:00:03 GMT

paul@hsh.com writes:

|In article <1992Dec24.184603.16096@jcnpc.cmhnet.org|, mam@jcnpc.cmhnet.org (Mike A. McAngus) writes:
|| John Switzer (jrs@netcom.com) wrote:
|| : In article <1992Dec19.195620.6688@seq.uncwil.edu| session@seq.uncwil.edu (Zac
|| k C. Sessions) writes:
|| : |
|| : |In my local paper (which is owned by the NYT) today there was a story
|| : |which directly contradicts these assertions. The headline was "Transition
|| : |aide says Clinton won't put tax on medical benefits". In the story, Judy
|| : |Feder, who is Clinton's transition team health policy chief, said that
|| : |President-elect Clinton is not planning to seek new taxes on employee
|| : |medical benefits to pay for health care reform. She said, "That was not
|| : |contemplated in the campaign, and there has been no change in that."
|| :
|| : Another example of Clinton talking out of both sides of his mouth, because
|| : Friday's Wall Street Journal quotes Clinton as saying he is considering endin
|| g
|| : the tax exemption on at least part of a company's health care costs. End of
|| : exemption translates into more taxes being paid and thus higher taxes. This
|| : translates into a defacto tax on a person's benefits that are above the
|| : basic minimum which Clinton and his advisers have yet to settle on.
|
|| 
|| Another example of a consevative putting the worst spin possible on what
|| Clinton says.  Removing tax exemptions for health care costs is a tax increase
|| on businesses not an increase on middle class tax payers.  Thus, the statement
|| by Clinton and the statement by Judy Feder do not contradict each other.
|
|Another example of a liberal who does not understand How Business Works. 
|Let's see if Mr. Switzer was paying attention in Economics 101.  Attention,
|class:  When you greatly increase the cost of doing business, most
|companies will A) absorb it, or B) pass on that increase in the form of
|higher prices.  Anyone? Anyone? 

Yet ANOTHER example of Conservative spin. Yes, I would admit that if you
increase the cost of doing business, this increased cost usually gets past
down to the consumers. And one thing which Clinton is CONSIDERING is putting
a cap on the deduction companies can claim on medical benefits costs. So,
the only way a company's cost would go up is if they increase the level of
their coverage, and then the only part which would be taxable would be
the increase.

However, Krueger's original point was that he felt that Clinton was really
saying was that he planned to tax INDIVIDUAL health insurance benefits,
which would result in the dreaded middle class tax increase. Problem is
that Clinton is NOT planning on doing that, and increasing one's individual
tax burden is NOT comparable in any way to an increase in costs to consumers
due to the cap in business's deductions.

Try again.

-- 
Zack Sessions
sessions@seq.uncwil.edu
University of North Carolina at Wilmington (Alumnus)
"Good health is merely the slowest form of dying."
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh