Look… in the long term, taxing excessively generous health care plans is probably a good idea. People should feel a bit of a pinch in their wallet when they ask for a brand name prescription instead of accepting the generic. I know from experience that exercise is probably the cheapest medicine on the planet and is an enormously effective preventative. The time I spend working out (and eating right) saves me money on medical costs. If your employer-provided medical plan allows you to take a pill for heartburn when you could just as easily cure yourself by spending twenty mintues exercising every day… well, that’s an expensive choice you are externalizing…

So yeah, I think it’s possible to be over-insured.

With that said, the Senate health care bill contains a tax on “Cadillac” Health Care plans. I’m not sure how it is going to be implemented, but I do know unions are concerned and I think they have a case.

The nut of their argument is that they made wage concessions in order to get better health care plans. When they went through contract negotiations, they valued their family’s health security more highly than the marginal number of dollars they would have taken home in their paychecks. They never suspected that Congress would come in through the back door and raid their bank accounts at tax time.

The answer here is to make the tax prospective – implement it for all health care plans negotiated after the law goes into effect.

I asked Senators Harkin and Landrieu about this. The conversation I had with Senator Landrieu was particularly interesting (sorry, audio only). She said that we may take the House’s “Millionaires tax” AND the tax on “Cadillac” plans. And she agreed with me when I pointed out that it has been the folks making over $250K that have made out so well over the last 8 years (I could have said 40 years, but that seems less relevant somehow). Hell, one in 8 Americans collect food stamps (and one in four kids). We simply cannot take any more from working class Americans. It’s time for the investor class to start sharing the load.