Health Insurance

CNNMoney.com, Op-Ed. Obama and other policymakers need to pay more attention to a fundamental conflict underlying the health care debate: People want the federal government to do much more than they are willing to pay for through their taxes.

Washington Times op-ed. Leonard Burman discusses the politics of the health care reform debate.

Policymakers are considering modifications to the tax treatment of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) as a way to raise revenue to help pay for health reform and provide incentives to reduce health care costs. Understanding how current subsidies work is important to assessing health reform proposals. This brief presents essential information about the structure and distribution of existing tax subsidies for ESI and the implications for policy options.

Washington Post op-ed, July 9, 2009. Employer-paid health insurance is entirely tax-free — a break that will cost the Treasury about $250 billion this year. Len Burman looks at tax-free health insurance provided by employers.

As many as 10 million older Americans and younger adults with disabilities require long-term care, either at home or in nursing facilities. The United States spends more than $200 billion annually for such care. However, our system for financing this assistance-principally Medicaid and family assets, with a small share funded through private insurance—may be untenable as baby boomers age. TPC's Howard Gleckman looks at the way we deliver and pay for these services in a new book, Caring for Our Parents: Inspiring Stories of Families Seeking New Solutions to America's Most Urgent Health Crisis. He and a panel of top policy experts will discuss how—or whether—long-term care should be included in health reform legislation.