On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 4:11 PM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 12:42 PM, Max Sawicky <[email protected]> wrote: >> Maybe they see a tax on the high cost plans eventually filtering down to >> them, >> especially if they lack medical cost adjustments. > > The problem with this line of reasoning is that it can be extended to > *any* tax increase of any kind on the rich. We can't have any taxes > because in the end, it will filter down to the poor worker! This is a > fallacy, pure and simple.
Well in light of the enormous need for more public revenue, the likelihood of any tax on the rich shifting (expanding) further and further down -- which I welcome -- is very high. Fear of tax expansion (which I support) is rational and well-founded, the protestations of assorted Dems notwithstanding. In the U.S., the left has based its appeal on the premise that YOU won't have to pay more taxes, just some other guys. In fact, you can't finance social-democracy without taxing the working class. There isn't enough money at the top. Anyone who thinks the contrary has not looked at the numbers. I documented this in this book (sorry no on-line version): http://tiny.cc/b7A6J > >> My former colleague at EPI, Elise Gould, pointed out in a paper that a plan >> could be high cost because it applies to a small shop (possibly unionized) >> with some old folks with expensive ailments. > > Expensive ailments does not mean higher premiums. It means higher > *payouts*. In any case, it is reasonable enough to say that a > 'Cadillac plan' should be carefully defined so as not to penalize some > class of poor workers. But how do you go from there to opposing the > tax entirely? > -raghu. Dude, if a shop has a bunch of old, overweight people in it -- like me -- the insuror is going to charge premiums that defray expected costs. The more complicated the definition, the tougher to design and administer. And there is still the danger of inadequate medical inflation adjustments (see first point above). _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
