Imagine if a single piece of legislation could effectively eliminate all U.S. corporate taxes, subsidize hundreds of millions of dollars in new corporate investment, increase the take-home pay of most U.S. employees, ease state and local budgets, and reduce the U.S. trade deficit — all without increasing the federal budget.
It sounds completely impossible, but it is not: All we have to do is put aside the moral and political debates about Obamacare and recognize our health care system for what it is: a burdensome and unnecessary tax on corporate America.
U.S. companies pay $327 billion in income taxes, but they pay $1.1 trillion — more than three times as much — in health insurance costs. No other OECD country imposes anything close to such a heavy “health care tax” on its businesses. Eliminating this tax by shifting all responsibility to the federal government under a single-payer system would create a massive economic stimulus, providing Democrats with the universal coverage they seek while offering corporate America a far greater stimulus than any proposed Republican tax cut.
