Paying for health reform

Yglesias notes that labor groups are opposing Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden's plan to fund health care reform by taxing employer provided benefits. Matt writes,

On the merits, I think it’s a little hard to see how Ron Wyden is public enemy number one at the present moment in time.

He's public enemy number one because he's proposing a very stupid plan that will hurt a lot of working and middle-class people. This isn't hard, I'm not sure why Yglesias insists on playing the part of The Obtuse Pundit here. Wyden is by all accounts a pretty decent Democrat but this is a bad idea and he shouldn't expect to get a pass on it. It's also a bad idea tied to a very important public policy issue. So yeah, I'm not sure what's so hard for Matt to see here.

Continuing Yglesias writes,

That said, I sympathize with the view that this shouldn’t be our only option in terms of revenue-raising. The Obama administration’s initial proposal to curtail deductions for high-income taxpayers was, for example, a perfectly sound idea—it marks well both on equity, in terms of hitting folks in the high-end, and in terms of efficiency in terms of minimizing economic distortions. There are also ideas out there for higher taxes on public health hazards. Meanwhile, over the medium-term revenues are going to have to be higher than they are now so we’ll probably need some combination of all these revenue measures.

Then let Sen. Wyden propose some combination thereof. Until someone puts forth a funding plan that doesn’t require balancing the new health program solely on the backs of American workers labor should fight back and do so vigorously.

You don’t get good public policy by quietly acquiescing to bad public policy and hoping that someone at some point in the future fixes the bad policy.