at its core was a major change to the way we tax health care. right now employers don t pay a dime of taxes on health care benefits. this tax break is fundamentally the foundation of our entire health care system. it s why so many of us get health care through our employers. a lot of people, myself included, think it is a cracked bad foundation, in fact. mccain proposed to eliminate it and replace it with a $2,500 tax credit for individuals and for families irrespective of employment status. he got killed. independent experts noted the plan would make health care more expensive for employers which would make them likely to drop health care coverage for employees. it was the obama campaign that made mccain pay. they attacked it as, wait for it, a tax increase. john mccain talks about a $5,000 tax credit for health care, but here s what he s not telling you. mccain would make you pay income tax on your health insurance benefits. taxing health benefits for the first time ever.
fixing it. we can t afford john mccain. i m barack obama and i approve this message. mccain was in that fall perhaps the first republican in a generation to lose to a democrat on the tax ire. and obama s attacks were somewhat disingenuous. the affordable care act ended up including a smaller version of the tax increase. that is the downside of putting forward a plan. when you tell people the tough choices you re going to make, they attack you for them. sometimes a little bit unfairly. that is politics. but it s a necessary part of politics because if you don t put forward a plan, no one knows what you re going to do. republicans in particular believe this very strongly. in fact, one of their main criticisms of president obama is he doesn t put forward enough detailed plans. they either don t have a plan or they simply do not want their fingerprints on one. the silence on my question today has been deafening because they don t have a plan. president obama doesn t hav
i mean, fewer people smoking means fewer people getting sick from smoking, fewer human tragedies associated with that, lower medical bills, it is a good thing. last night californians voted on whether or not to raise taxes on cigarettes in their state, even though california in practical terms is really anti-smoking, the tax on a pack of cigarettes is low compared to the rest of the country. it s less than 90 cents a pack in california, the national average is more like $1.50 a back. so this ballot initiative yesterday would up the cigarette tax in this very, very anti-smoking state. and the proceeds from the new tax would go to cancer research. they think it would raise $750 million every year, and the money wouldn t just go to the general fund or to the legislature or to some politician you think you don t like, it would go to cancer research. so if you hate cancer, and who doesn t hate cancer, californians yesterday had the opportunity to vote on something that would hate
california has such a low smoking rate p. i mean, fewer people smoking means fewer people getting sick from smoking, fewer human tragedies associated with that, lower medical bills, it is a good thing. last night californians voted on whether or not to raise taxes on cigarettes in their state, even though california in practical terms is really anti-smoking, the tax on a pack of cigarettes is low compared to the rest of the country. it s less than 90 cents a ba ss in california, the national average is more like $1.50 a back. so this ballot initiative yesterday would up the cigarette tax in this very, very anti-smoking state. and the proceeds from the new tax would go to cancer research. they think it would raise $750 million every year, and the money wouldn t just go to the general fund or to the legislature or to some politician you think you don t like, it would go to cancer research. so if you hate cancer, and who doesn t hate cancer, californians yesterday had the opport
populous state in the nation, it s kind of a good thing for the whole country that california has such a low smoking rate. i mean, fewer people smoking means fewer people getting sick from smoking, fewer human tragedies associated with that, lower medical bills, it is a good thing. last night californians voted on whether or not to raise taxes on cigarettes in their state, even though california in practical terms is really anti-smoking, the tax on a pack of cigarettes is low compared to the rest of the country. it s less than 90 cents a pack in california, the national average is more like $1.50 a back. so this ballot initiative yesterday would up the cigarette tax in this very, very anti-smoking state. and the proceeds from the new tax would go to cancer research. they think it would raise $750 million every year, and the money wouldn t just go to the general fund or to the legislature or to some politician you think you don t like, it would go to cancer research. so if you