Employer contributions to employee healthcare costs constitute a de facto healthcare tax credit since they are not included as taxable income for employees. The proposed individual healthcare credits simply provide “equal protection (or benefit) of the laws” according to Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Both are, in reality, subsidies or entitlements.
Consequently, conservative constipation over healthcare tax credits for individual healthcare costs is hypocritical. Conservatives claim that the healthcare tax credits constitute a new entitlement. If the tax credits for individual healthcare costs constitute an entitlement, then not taxing employees for employer contributions to employee healthcare costs is also an entitlement. The issue is extremely important for the self-employed and small businesses that are too small to provide employer based healthcare insurance. Both of these groups are economically disadvantaged in comparison to those receiving employer healthcare benefits. Conservatives in both the US House of Representatives and the Senate should recognize this reality as a matter of simple fairness.
The healthcare tax credit for individual healthcare costs does not solve the healthcare issues caused by Obamacare or the issues of healthcare in the United States. This nation needs a healthcare system that effectively deals with the entire system that gives control of healthcare to patients and doctors not corporate executives and government bureaucrats.
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