Bush urges tax to help cover the uninsured

Health Insurance :: Bush urges tax to help cover the uninsured

President George W. Bush of US urges tax on health insurances provided by the employers to their employees, to help cover the uninsured 47 million Americans.

"Our challenge is clear," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "We must address these rising costs, so that more Americans can afford basic health insurance. And we need to do it without creating a new federal entitlement program or raising taxes."

The basic concept of the president?s plan is that employer-provided health insurance, now treated as a fringe benefit exempt from taxation, would no longer be entirely tax-free. Workers could be taxed if their coverage exceeded limits set by the government. But the government would also offer a new tax deduction for people buying health insurance on their own.

But the program is intended to have no effect on government revenues because the cost of the tax breaks would be offset by changing the way health insurance is treated in the tax code.