One of the under-appreciated defects of the Democrats’ health legislation is that it would sharply raise implicit marginal tax rates for low-wage workers. It would, that is, punish such workers for bettering their lot. After looking over the Obama administration’s proposed changes to the legislation, Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute e-mails that the resulting legislation would be worse, in this respect, than either the House or Senate versions of the bill. He also says that high-income workers would have more of an incentive to drop their health insurance under Obama’s proposal than under either the House or the Senate bills. “That would cause insurance markets to unravel even faster.”
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About the Author
Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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