Poll: Tax wealthy to pay for health overhaul

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans don’t want to shoulder the cost of President Barack Obama’s health- care overhaul themselves. They think the rich should pay for it.

That’s the finding from a new Associated Press poll, and it could be a boost for House Democrats, who have proposed taxing upper- income people to fund their sweeping remake of the U.S. medical system. Their plan, which the House approved this month, would extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.

The poll, conducted by Stanford University with the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, found survey participants sour on other ways of paying for the health overhaul that is being considered in Congress.

The options they don’t like include taxing insurers on the high-value coverage packages derided by Obama and Democrats as “Cadillac plans.” That tax approach, being weighed in the Senate, is one of the few proposals in any congressional legislation that analysts say would help reduce the nation’s health expenditures. It has come under fire from organized labor and has little support in the House.

Lawmakers also are looking at levying new taxes on insurance companies, drug companies and medical-device makers. But the only approach that got majority support in the AP poll was a tax on upper-income Americans.

The House bill would impose a 5.4 percent income-tax surcharge on individuals making more than $500,000 a year and households making more than $1 million.

The poll tested views on an even more-punitive taxation scheme that was under consideration earlier, when the tax would have hit people making more than $250,000 a year. Even at that level, the poll showed majority support, with 57 percent in favor and 36 percent opposed.

“You know, I mean, why not? If they have that much money, it should be taxed,” said Mary Pat Rondthaler, 60, of Menlo Park, Calif. “It isn’t the same way that the guy making $21,000 is.”

Not everyone agreed.

“They earn their money. And they shouldn’t have to pay for somebody else. It doesn’t seem fair,” said Emerson Wilkins, 62, of Powder Springs, Ga.

An income-tax increase on all Americans to pay for a health-care remake — an approach Congress never considered — was overwhelmingly rejected in the poll. Seventy-five percent opposed that idea, and only 19 percent were in favor.

Overall, the poll found the public split on Congress’ health-care plans. In response to some questions, participants said the current system needed to be changed, but they also voiced concerns about the impact on their own pocketbooks, preferring to push any new costs onto wealthier Americans.

For example, 77 percent said the cost of health care in the United States was higher than it should be, and 74 percent favored the broad goal of reducing the amount of money paid by patients and their insurers. But 49 percent said any changes made by the government probably would cause them to pay more for health care. Thirty-two percent said it wouldn’t change what they pay, and just 12 percent said they would end up paying less.

With lawmakers searching for new revenue sources to pay for the overhaul legislation, upper-income taxes may be gaining favor.

Legislation passed by Senate committees did not go that route, but now Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has a free hand in merging two committee-passed bills, is considering raising the payroll tax that goes to Medicare on income above $250,000 a year, officials told The Associated Press last week. Current law sets the tax at 1.45 percent of income, an amount matched by employers.

The Senate Finance Committee bill would tax health-insurance plans costing more than $8,000 annually for individuals and $21,000 for families, although those numbers are expected to end up higher in Reid’s bill. Union members are lined up against that approach because they fear their benefits could be hurt, and the public doesn’t like it either, the AP poll found. Fifty-six percent were opposed and only 29 percent were in favor.