Liberals and Conservatives Agree: Taxing the poor is no way to pay for health care reform

Robert Book / August 07, 2009

The Senate Finance Committee’s proposed version of the “pay or play” employer mandate reportedly calls for employers who do not sponsor health insurance to pay a “free rider” tax equal to the subsidies their low-income employees would receive to buy insurance in a proposed national health insurance exchange.

Yesterday, health law expert Judith Solomon and former Carter Administration official Robert Greenstein of the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities released a report explaining how this will be devastating to the employment prospects of low-income workers – and even more devastating to those workers with families to support.

These concerns are essentially the same as those we raised last month, which we call “taxing the poor to pay for health care.” The House bill also has similar defects.
As Solomon and Greenstein point out: (more…)