Goodbye to Employer Provided Health Insurance?

If BushCo. get their way in a second term and is able to push through their tax plans, many of us who get our health insurance subsidized through our employers may be looking on the open market. Note the sentence I've highlighted in the paragraph below from this morning's Washington Post:

Instead the administration plans to push major amendments that would shield interest, dividends and capitals gains from taxation, expand tax breaks for business investment and take other steps intended to simplify the system and encourage economic growth, according to several people who are advising the White House or are familiar with the deliberations.

The changes are meant to be revenue-neutral. To pay for them, the administration is considering eliminating the deduction of state and local taxes on federal income tax returns and scrapping the business tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance, the advisers said.

Hat tip to Atrios for the link.

So much for Health Savings Accounts being "voluntary," eh? Notice, too, all the sops to big business in the first paragraph. Not that there was any doubt, but there you have BushCo.'s true constituency. If you ever drank the "compassionate-conservative" kool-aid and thought the Republicans cared about what happens to you or me, this should finally disabuse you of the notion.

Welcome to the birth of USA, Inc.