Newsletter Archive
February 15, 2007
The Tax Policy Center Newsletter
The paper describes the new standard deduction for health insurance, proposed in the FY2008 Budget, and evaluates the extent to which it would meet its stated goals of expanding health insurance coverage and restraining healthcare spending, and its effects on the distribution of tax burdens in the short and long terms. The basic approach would improve the market for health insurance, but inadequate attention was paid to problems in the nongroup market or those facing households with low incomes. In consequence, the plan could actually reduce overall insurance coverage. The paper suggests a variety of ways in which the proposal could be improved so more people would be covered, including those with low incomes or in poor health. The paper substantially revises and expands our "First Look" published earlier this month.
Read the complete paper
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the unified deficit in fiscal year 2007 will be $198 billion. This amounts to 1.5 percent of Gross Domestic Project (GDP), which is less than the average over the last forty years. This may lull some into a false sense of complacency. It should not. The United States can do a lot better than a $198 billion unified deficit and the United States needs to do much better than a $388 billion non-Social Security deficit. This is especially true in a year when macroeconomic performance is strong and when we face large risks including the private saving rate at its lowest level since 1939, a current account deficit approaching 7 percent of GDP, and major fiscal challenges just around the corner.
Read the complete testimony
Healthcare analysts have long deplored the linkage between health insurance and employment. It makes no sense for one's health insurance to end if one leaves a job. Various state reform plans, including that of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, deal with the healthcare system as a whole. But President Bush's proposed fix does not go far enough. If Bush's one-step plan were enacted, the nation would step into a very deep hole. Two additional steps are necessary for genuine reform: measures to make the individual health insurance market work, and assistance to low-income households that makes insurance affordable.
Read the op-ed
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