How to pay for health care
By Max J. Castro
Health care reform is the most important social reform since the adoption of Medicare in the 1960s. The goal of universal health care looks finally attainable. Various interest groups have expressed their support. The biggest hurdle now is how to pay the cost of extending care to the 47 million who are currently uninsured.
One of the leading proposals is to tax the health benefits that employers now extend to their employees. But it’s a bad idea to penalize those companies that bestow generous benefits or the employees lucky enough to work for one of those pillars of corporate social responsibility.
A far better plan to raise revenues for health care is being discussed among members of the House of Representatives. It would levy a surcharge tax to individuals who make more than $280,000 a year with a higher threshold on couples.
The idea will raise the ire of most Republicans and a few Democrats but it is eminently fair. The United States has the most unequal income distribution among the developed countries in the world. It is also the only one without universal health care. These two facts are not unrelated. The wealthy, who reaped the lion’s share of the economic growth of the last 20 years, can certainly afford to pay a higher tax rate in order to end the scandal that is our medical system.
Along with various savings promised by hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and other interest groups, the surtax can go a long way in accomplishing the long-delayed hope for universal health care. If a single payer system — by far the best approach — is not feasible for political reasons, then an alternative public plan paid by savings and taxes on the wealthy is the second best option.
What a concept: To pay for health care for the neediest Americans by taxing the best off. Somewhere Franklyn Delano Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, and Michael Harrington are smiling.
On the other hand, the proposal to raise taxes on the highest incomes is sure to give the Republican fits. It is exactly the opposite of what they have been doing for three decades. “Socialism!” they will cry. “Class warfare!” they will charge. But their votes are not needed and the Democrats should ignore their sound and fury. Bipartisanship was never a priority when the GOP was in power. Now the Republicans richly deserve a taste of their own medicine.
