Subject: taxation of medical insurance premiums Comment: I provide health care benefits to employers and their employees in the San Antonio, Texas area. Health care costs have been increasing at a very high rate and it is exceedingly more difficult for employees to afford the premiums even under the Section 125 basis. I professionally believe that taxation of benefits would force the government to provide some type of socialized medicine and would generally hurt the national effort to provide quality and affordable care with less government intervention. A more realistic approach would be to study the stranglehold that the FDA and the drug-medical community have, whether deliberately or undeliberately, over the availability of alternative means. The FDA and the drug companies appear to have a self serving common interest that functions to restrict open competition and thus have a contrived monoploy in this area. It is amazing to me how other countries have alternative sources of medicine as well as having access to the same medications as U.S. resident but at far less costs. We can look back of how government studied the communication industries and de-regulated it and now we even have phones available at very low rates. Look at the causes of high health premiums and do something about that. Thanks for listening to my two cents worth of opinion. |