But winners [from the Bush health care plan] could turn into losers with time. Even people with policies under the cap could eventually hit the ceiling as health costs rise. That’s because the cap would be indexed to general inflation — not health care inflation, which has risen more rapidly in recent years.
That is from today’s Wall Street Journal, p.D3, "How Health Care Proposals Could Affect the Insured." Here are some numbers on how much the two inflation rates differ; so is the Bush plan simply an eventual phase-out of this tax deduction?
Who said Dubya is a dummy?
Slow phasing out of the health care deduction due to the difference in inflation reates?
As the Guiness Boys say: Brilliant!
Its not a bug, its a feature for conservatives…
Aargh. It’s “rein in”, *not* “reign in”!
> Aargh. It’s “rein in”, *not* “reign in”!
Don’t rain on my parade.
Nothing personal, just wanted to rail against the pervasiveness of inaccurate spelling.
I believe the way our health insurance tax code is now – encouraging people to select without regard to cost – is one of the biggest reasons for healthcare inflation. The plan would certainly reduce that. And in any event, I would say the first-best solution is to end the tax break for health insurance, which is still a private, not a public good.
Get even more socialized medicine, they’ll find out.
When Canuckistan’s dogs and cats were getting MRIs faster than humans……
responding to the post at the top, currently heatlh costs are rising faster than general inflation but one of the results, hopefully, of the bush health plan is that offering tax breaks to people who buy insurance on their own, in other words, levelling the playing field and making basic catastrophic insurance mandatory for all will reduce heatlh costs from rising as rapidly as they do now.
by the way, and this may be a different post, singapore has an excellent health care system, according to tim harford, the undercover economist.
thank you very much
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