WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is leaving the door open to taxing health-care benefits, something he opposed strongly while running for president, according to senators who met with him yesterday.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., raised the issue with Obama during a private meeting with other Democratic senators and later reported the president's position: "It's on the table. It's an option."
The White House said later that Obama does not want to go that route. "The president made it clear during the campaign that he has serious concerns about taxing health-care benefits," spokesman Reid Cherlin said in a statement.
The federal government would reap about $250 billion a year if it treated health-care benefits given to employees like wages and taxed them.
Baucus and others are searching for ways to pay for a health-care overhaul that would extend coverage to about 50 million Americans who are uninsured. That could cost about $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
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