So, the Obama Administration is ready to make health care more expensive

NYT:

The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system.

The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as “the largest middle-class tax increase in history.” Most Americans with insurance get it from their employers, and taxing workers for the benefit is opposed by union leaders and some businesses.

This is where I start to get sour with the president. John McCain’s proposal to tax health benefits was one of the chief cudgels Obama used against the Republican nominee during the campaign, and now he wants to co-opt it? I know Obama — despite all the hype — is just a politician, but Jesus.

It’s not just a deduction on style points I’m giving Obama. There’s the substance. Unlike my conservative friends, I’m far from an ardent free-marketer when it comes to health care. Subjecting my ability to live to market whims seems insane. Still, the Obama plan has always been to leave many workers in the hands of employment-based private insurance and use government to fill in the gaps. But taxing health benefits will inevitably drive many workers out of the private system — many people can barely afford their insurance even without the taxes — and into the arms of government.  Which is no skin off my nose, but why the half-measures? If you’re going to create a system that forces most people to rely on the government, why persist with the free market fiction?