Subscribe to Moronmeter!Senate Democrats to U.S. Workers: If You Want Tax-Free Health Benefits, Go Union
Some times, you hear or read about something and you think, “Wow, I did not see that coming!” South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s recent romantic misadventure springs to mind.
Other times, you read about something and you think, “Holy crap! How can anyone NOT have seen that coming?!?” The Iranian government’s crackdown against election demonstrators, Perez Hilton getting bitch slapped, and the whole Jon & Kate thing (although, let’s be honest, only one of those things is newsworthy, the other two are Big Media pablum to keep the masses fat, dumb, and happy).
Here is another instance of something you just had to know was coming. Bloomberg.com is reporting, well, the article title says it all… Unions’ Health Benefits May Avoid Tax Under Senate Proposal.
The big takeaway from the article is this: Senate Democrats are busily working out deals, which may leave non-Union workers paying taxes on their “gold-plated” health benefit plans, whilst Union Workers get a pass (at least until their current labor contracts expire).
The logic? Here is a quote that sums it up:
Gerald Shea, an AFL-CIO official lobbying for health-care reform, said grandfathering benefits negotiated in a collective bargaining agreement is a “common thing when there is a big change in federal law.”
“Once a collective bargaining agreement is set, employer’s budgets are set, workers expectations are set. It doesn’t make sense to go back in the middle of the contract and change it,” he said. “If they didn’t do this, it would be shocking and if they do, it’s a normal course of events.”
Union groups and workers said Congress shouldn’t target contractually-negotiated benefits.
What kind of logic is this?!?
When you accept a non-Union job and it includes health benefits, your employer has set a budget for paying you… salary (or hourly wages) + benefits. There isn’t some sort of magic “possible government taxes that don’t currently exist, but might in the future” line item that they have on the books, just in case the government changes the rules on them.
Likewise, your expectations are set. You don’t live in a bewildering world of uncertainty, wondering, “How much is the government going to tax my company provided health benefits this week? I just don’t know…” You expect to get pay taxes on your earnings and you DON’T expect to pay them on your health care benefits.
It doesn’t matter if you are a union worker or not. If healthcare benefits are a part of your compensation package, they should either be taxable or not. End of story.
If they really wanted to make things ‘fair’, they’d extend the tax break to people who have to buy their own insurance, because their employer either doesn’t provide access to it or provides access to plans with such exorborant costs that the employees can’t afford it.
Of course, that would allow more people to purchase health care coverage on their own, which is not the intent of the current Democratic health care reform push.
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