Some folks e-mailed asking me to comment on this Ron Brownstein health care column, but I don't have much quarrel with it. Brownstein says the Obama camp is wrong to portray McCain's policy as a massive tax increase on the middle class, and that's right, but only insofar as they're wrong to portray the effects of a health care policy as if it were a change in the tax code. It's much more complicated than that. But as a shorthand, it's not that bad. it really is the case that most workers will feel the full brunt of a $3.6 trillion tax hike on employer benefits. For a fuller statement of that view, I'll just direct folks to this post. As an addendum, I'm a bit more puzzled by Marc Ambinder's post on the article, which calls it "a balanced column on health care that neither campaign will like (which is why it's worth pointing to)!" Even after a couple of years as a professional journalist, I still find that mindset very weird.
