Ho hum! Here we go again. Another day, and yet another of the many trial balloons from the White House task force on health-care reform.
But stifle those yawns. There's nothing boring about the prospect of higher prices or more unemployment.Yet that's what can happen if Congress is foolish enough to go along with the latest proposal for financing a sweeping overhaul of the health-care system.
Though the task force calls its new suggestion a "payroll premium," that phrase is considerably less than candid. A more accurate description would be a tax - a payroll tax.
Specifically, the plan is for a levy not to exceed 7 percent of payroll. Employers would pay this "premium" to a regional health insurance purchasing group, which would buy health insurance for all Americans.
Most of the nation's biggest companies now serve as their own health insurers, and the Clinton administration is expected to let them continue to do so. But if all employers participated in the plan, a 7 percent premium or tax would raise more than $250 billion a year. Employee contributions would raise another $40 billion to $60 billion.
What the task force conveniently neglects to mention is the that a payroll tax or premium would increase the cost of hiring workers and make it harder to create new jobs.
Like the reportedly discarded proposal for financing health-care reforms with a national sales tax, the payroll tax emphasizes the point that there's no such thing as a painless way of overhauling the medical system. But is there no way to extend health coverage without curtailing employment? And has the White House's own task force really forgotten about Clinton's promise to put the creation of new jobs at the top of his agenda?