Bipartisan Group Tells Super Committee: Don’t Tax Workers’ Health Care
Andrew Pantelis, a lieutenant with the Prince George’s County Fire and EMS Department in Landover, Md., says that taxing employer-provided health care benefits—a proposal before the so-called budget deficit “Super Committee”—would “hurt millions of working class Americans.”
Pantelis, president of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 1619, spoke at a Capitol Hill conference today where Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) and Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) released a letter to the Super Committee opposing elimination of the current tax exemption of the health care coverage employees receive at work. The letter was signed by 160 representatives of both parties.
Some 60 million Americans would face a bigger tax bill under the proposal. Says Pantelis:
A Tax on Health Care Benefits: The Wrong Policy
Members of Congress, union members and working family activists rallied in Washington, D.C., today in support of health care reform—and against funding it with a new tax on health benefits.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who has introduced an amendment to remove a benefits tax from the Senate bill—and Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) were joined by workers from across the country who would be hurt if a new benefits tax became law, as well as leaders from across the union movement.
AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker attended the rally and said placing a tax on working people’s health benefits would be a step in the wrong direction for health care:
Some in the Senate are now proposing that workers who already have it so hard should have to pay more for the health care they have. We’re here to say that’s just plain wrong. This is not just a union issue. Taxing benefits would hurt all workers—we know that one in five workers would be hurt by this tax and that’s a lot more people than union members.
Working Families Take Health Care Reform Message to Capitol Hill
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With the Senate poised to consider comprehensive health care reform soon, more than 100 workers and activists from two dozen states converged on Capitol Hill yesterday to remind lawmakers that the union members and working families who worked so hard on their campaigns last fall are the same people who strongly back health care reform.
They delivered more than 42,000 personally written letters from members of unions and Working America calling on Congress to pass comprehensive health care reform legislation.
California Labor Federation Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski was encouraged after his meetings with members of the Golden State delegation. He said both senators and a large number of representatives, including Blue Dog Democrats, are coming out in support of health care reform.
