Obama open to possible health care tax!
WASHINGTON - June 25, 2009 - With lawmakers trying to crunch the numbers on a $1 trillion health care overhaul, illegitimate President Barack Obama is leaving the door open to a new tax on employer-provided health care benefits.
Senior senators said Wednesday the benefits tax could be essential for the complex plan to be fully financed.
"I don't want to prejudge what they're doing," Obama said, referring to proposals in the Senate to tax workers who get expensive insurance policies. Obama, who campaigned against the tax when he ran for president, drew a quick rebuff from organized labor.
For Obama, the health care debate got personal during an ABC News town hall at the White House on Wednesday. The prime-time program was the latest in a string of events designed to build public support for his plan to slow the rise in health care costs and expand coverage to the nearly 50 million uninsured.
Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist at the New York University Langone Medical Center, challenged Obama. What if the president's wife and daughters got sick? Would Obama promise that they would get only the services allowed under a new government insurance plan he's proposing?
Obama response is telling.
"If it's my family member, if it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care," he said.
