CT Blue

Firedoglake has engaged in a sometimes hostile opposition from the left to the Obama Administration. At times it has been a bit over the top, but sometimes they get things exactly right.

We are all, perhaps, getting a bit weary about even thinking about health care, which is just what the lobbyists want, so they can move in for the kill. They never get weary so long as the bucks keep flowing.

One of the main differences between the House and Senate version of health care, besides the doomed public option, is the method of paying for it. The House proposes to tax the rich; the Senate proposes to tax working people, in the form of a tax on “cadillac” health plans.

Let me pause here to say that our own Joe Courtney has taken the lead in opposing the Senate plan on this count.

The Administration literally hired an MIT economist to give this tax intellectual cover. It’s a tax, by the way, that Obama opposed during his campaign. The unions used that opposition to Obama’s great advantage at the time. He has now embraced it, perhaps because Ben Nelson wants it. It is yet another of those issues that he has caved on without a fight.

The argument is that if these plans are taxed, employers will find a cheaper way to get insurance for their workers, and return the savings to their workers in the form of higher wages. Anyone who works for a living would immediately tell you this is absurd, but it is an article of faith among many economists, much as it was an article of faith that criminals (i.e., too-big-to-fail bankers and hedge fund managers) lining their pockets with short term, imaginary profits would put the interests of their stockholders first. Emptywheel, at Firedoglake, has done a good job at exposing both the intellectual shill (a fellow named David Gruber) and the fact that there is a distinct lack of empirical data in support of this claim. This is yet another example of the Democrats seeming desire to commit electoral suicide (I thought of the metaphor before finding the link). The Republicans are supposed to be the party that tries to turn the members of the middle class against each other, and all of them against the working class and poor. It works for them. The Democrats are once again doing their work for them.