Look Who's Talking About Taxing Health Benefits Now

As WW reported this week, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is taking some unaccustomed heat from the left — as in from unions that are typically allied with Wyden — for his health care proposal.

And that makes this column today in The American Prospect by former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich a very interesting addition to the debate.

Reich's liberal bona fides from his time in the Clinton Administration and other posts are hard to attack. And yet he writes in this piece that "it appears the president will need to tax employer- provided health benefits in order to finance universal health care."

Reich's proposal: "a sensible and politically feasible alternative is to limit tax-free employer-provided health benefits to workers whose incomes are under, say, $100,000 a year and subject those with higher incomes to progressively higher taxes on them."