Remember all that “free” health care you were going to get from Barack Obama?  Well… see the thing is, health care is really expensive, so he’s just going to have to raise taxes instead, but he’ll call it a “modified tax exclusion” so you won’t even know it until your paycheck drops.

Indiana employers have been more generous than most in providing health insurance coverage to their workers, picking up the 12th-highest share of the premium for a family plan, according to the most recent figures available.

That benefit has been provided tax-free to employees. But that could change for some people.

The exclusion of employer-provided health care from taxable wages is the nation’s biggest tax benefit, and the hundreds of billions of dollars in potential revenue is being eyed as one way to help pay for extending health care coverage.

“We should look at ways to modify the current tax exclusion so that it provides the right incentives,” Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat working on a way to pay for changes to the health care system said in May. “We should look at ways to make it fairer and more equitable for everyone.”

Despite mounting opposition from some congressional leaders, Baucus said Friday that he’s still weighing a tax aimed at people with the most expensive benefit plans. — Indianapolis Star

Don’t count on that, the people with the most expensive benefit plans are usually union members.