Hoffa on taxing health care benefits

When your last name is Hoffa, people tend to listen.

One of the suggestions making its way through Democrat-controlled Washington is taxing employee health benefits--something Barack Obama ridiculed during last year's presidential election.

James P. Hoffa, is the president of the Teamsters Union. He doesn't like that idea, as explains in Roll Call:

Adding a tax onto an already crushing expense for employers and employees would create a huge disincentive to buy employer-sponsored health insurance.

It would mostly burden people who are older or sicker, women of childbearing age, employees of small businesses and residents of high-cost communities.

It would set off a stampede to the public plan. And the public plan would lose a major source of revenue.

In related news, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) is floating a proposal to exempt unions from the proposed tax.

Eighty-eight percent of working Americans are not members of a union.

Labor has been a consistent source of campaign funds for Democrats since the 1930s.

Related post:

Union members: More equal than others in Obama's America

Technorati tags: government politics health care health universal health care health care reform Obama Barack Obama max baucus Montana labor unions news organized labor