Too often I hear the refrain from my conservative friends, from right-wing radio blowhards, from pundits of all stripes: "You liberals want all these new entitlements, but you aren't willing to pay for them. Rush Limbaugh loves to challenge his liberal callers to volunteer to pay higher taxes. Well, here is my answer:
Tax me, please! Or, more particularly, tax my employer-provided health-care benefits.
I am one of the lucky ones. My employer pays for 60% of a very generous Blue Cross & Blue Shield health insurance plan. I am young, healthy, and I can thankfully afford to pay the remaining 40% of my premiums. I don't have to be afraid when I get sick that I will be bankrupted by medical bills.
But I know what it is like to be uninsured. I've been unemployed and lost my insurance. I've had to make the choice between essential mental health medications, food, and heating fuel. I've taken a job stacking boxes in a warehouse for barely above minimum wage just so that I could join a health insurance plan...and pay 100% of a group insurance premiums myself.
So here I am, having learned empathy through my own struggles, and I am offering up the sacred cow of modern health care: my tax-exempt health care plan. I am willing to pay taxes on 100% of my Blue Cross premiums if it will mean that nobody else will have to struggle with fear and hopelessness of being uninsured.
Will you join me?