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October 13, 2008
Burman Presents A Blueprint for Tax Reform and Health Reform Today at Loyola-L.A.
Leonard E. Burman (Urban Institute) presents A Blueprint for Tax Reform and Health Reform at Loyola-L.A. today as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium Series. The commentator is Michael D. Intriligator (UCLA, Department of Economics). Here is the abstract:
Burman outlines a plan for tax reform that would maintain progressivity, raise enough revenues to finance the government, and dovetail with plans to provide universal access to health insurance. It would combine a value-added tax (VAT) dedicated to pay for a new universal health insurance voucher with a vastly simplified and much flatter income tax. With a new financing source for health care, income tax rates could be cut sharply—the top rates could be cut to 25% or less. The health care voucher would also offset the inherent regressivity of a VAT. And, under the simplified system, most Americans would not have to file income tax returns.
October 13, 2008 in Colloquia | Permalink
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Comments
Burman's idea is one of the few truly original approaches that I've seen to the health care train wreck. You know, the train wreck that everyone predicts but nobody will spend political capital to prevent. The entitlement bubble is a worldwide phenomenon, and is arguably larger than the recently burst credit bubble was.
That said, I believe that even Burman's idea is not equal to the problem. The eventual result of government-funded health care will be what you see in England: most of the people get inferior care, while the upper middle class pay for the public system through taxes and then pay again directly for a better private alternative for themselves.
This is very nearly the same situation we have today in American K-12 schooling. Let's hope that the government will be content to pay for health care rather than making all medical workers unionized government employees a la the National Education Association.
Posted by: AMTbuff | Oct 13, 2008 4:35:23 PM
Oh my God. For someone who is a tax professor, you're missing the point. Get off your academic ass and get into the real world and do some damn returns. You'll see the actual flow as it hits the actual tax payer.
Not some silly academic theory that ignores the interplay of life and the IRC.
Posted by: Moses | Oct 13, 2008 10:09:23 PM
