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A “pattern of deceit” is being used by the McCain campaign — not only to lie about the Obama tax plan, but also to keep voters from noticing how McCain plans to raise taxes on millions of regular Americans.

Everywhere I go, I hear the claims that Barack Obama will raise our taxes. I hear it from John McCain ads and campaign surrogates. I even hear it from my union co-workers, who are either unaware of, or unwilling to believe the flood of independent analysis indicating that Barack Obama’s tax policy is easier on middle and working class families than McCain’s (read about what FactCheck.org calls a “pattern of deceit” on the part of the McCain campaign).

Aside from bigger deficits and lower taxes on the wealthy, there’s one more linchpin of the McCain agenda that would absolutely raise taxes on millions of working people — if we let him get his way.

You see, lost in all the pretty words of McCain’s so-called “straight talk” on healthcare reform, is the simple fact that he plans to count employer-based healthcare coverage as taxable income. That means that people like me (and you, if you work for any company that offers health benefits) will suddenly be paying taxes on thousands of dollars more a year in “income” – despite that fact our actual salary won’t have increased. Matthew Yglesias writes about what he calls “McCain’s Health Care Tax Hike”:

…at the moment, compensation you receive from your employer in the form of money is subject to income tax, but compensation you receive from your employer in the form of employer contributions to health insurance premiums is not taxed. McCain proposes to change this and start subjecting those benefits to taxation. Some people, obviously, don’t have employer provided health insurance in which case this won’t make any difference to them. But for those of us who do get insurance through work, this is a very big increase.

A big increase indeed. Of course, those who admit to this policy and actually defend it will argue that the end result is to help with tax credits for uninsured Americans. But their mission is going to be financed by the increase on Americans who get their health insurance through work – which is fine by the McCain camp, because they admittedly want to discourage employer-based health coverage, as per USA Today:

McCain’s plan aims at eliminating “the bias toward employer-sponsored health insurance” by offering tax credits for individual plans, according to his campaign website. The credits would be $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families. Those amounts would be subtracted from the final tax bill. Families, the campaign says, should be able to buy nationwide policies that can move from state to state.

And while the idea of trying to help the uninsured afford coverage is a nice idea, this one does little to curb the rising cost of healthcare. Additionally, it doesn’t come close to matching the financial expense of purchasing independent coverage. Again, from USA Today:

Such write-offs have limited value because average family health care plans cost about $12,000 a year, says Ken Thorpe, a health policy professor at Emory University in Atlanta. Also, many insurers won’t accept individuals with pre-existing medical problems, he says.

There’s already too much information flowing from the McCain campaign that goes unchallenged. Too many lies and threads of misinformation. Too many things that get ignored while we get distracted by the Sarah Palin circus. And that’s dangerous, because by not paying attention we as working people get screwed by politicians with plans to turn our lives upside-down.

So if you think John McCain is the guy who will cut your taxes, you need to pay more attention to what’s really happening.

And I honestly hope you will.

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For more background on this issue, please check out the AFL-CIO fact sheet on McCain Healthcare tax, or one of these two downloadable PDFs:

• AFL-CIO: McCain’s Health Care Proposal Will Increase Costs and Reduce Benefits [PDF]
• Center for American Progress: John McCain’s Radical Prescription
  for Health Care [PDF]

UPDATE 9/11/08: Jason Lefkowitz at CtW Connect has a little more to add to the issue in one of today’s posts.

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Filed under: 2008 Presidential election, 2008 contract, Uncategorized, politics, rights