By Associated Press
Washington, DC – Policy experts say a health care plan like the one President Bush proposed last week would have little impact in moving roughly 650-thousand uninsured Alabamians into coverage. But since the state has lower insurance costs than much of the country, more Alabama residents could be eligible for new tax breaks in the short term. Higher-paid workers would likely benefit the most. Bush's plan, unveiled in his State of the Union speech, would change the way the I-R-S treats health benefits. The cost of an insurance policy -- including what an employee and an employer pay -- would be treated as taxable income. To offset that income, Bush would create a 15-thousand-dollar standard tax deduction for family coverage and a 75-hundred-dollar standard deduction for individual coverage. Gary Claxton, director of the Health Care Marketplace Project at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said workers at poverty level often pay little or nothing in taxes, so a large deduction provides them with a minor benefit at best.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)