Health reform is necessary to expand health care access and quality. Health reform is also the key to fundamental tax reform. An accident of history led the second federal income tax to distort the entire US health sector—driving up prices and driving down quality for both medical care and health insurance. Consumers’ fears that tax reform could disrupt their access to health care may be the single greatest obstacle to fundamental tax reform. Fortunately, the same piecemeal tax reforms that would undo the “original sin” of US health care—reforms Congress can achieve through the reconciliation process—would facilitate further reforms that would make the tax code flatter, simpler, and fairer.
Please join us at noon on February 20 in the Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2075.
