White House won’t rule out taxing health benefits – USA Today (6/28/09):

The Obama White House left open the possibility Sunday that the president would break a campaign promise and raise taxes on people earning less than $250,000 to support his health care overhaul agenda.

White House adviser David Axelrod said the administration wouldn’t rule out taxing some employees’ benefits to fund a health care agenda that has yet to take final form. The move would be a compromise with fellow Democrats, who are pushing the proposal as a way to pay for the massive undertaking without ballooning the federal deficit.

Obama repeated this promise multiple times every day for more than a year. When John McCain came out with a health care plan that proposed taxing benefits, Obama called it “radical.” He even ran an ad calling attention to it:

“On health care, John McCain promises a tax credit,” an announcer says in one of Obama’s new ads, over images of families examining their bills. “But here’s what he won’t tell you: McCain would make you pay taxes on your health benefits, taxing your health care for the first time ever, raising costs for employers who offer health care so your coverage could be reduced or dropped completely. You won’t find one word about it on his website.”

Concurrently, Obama was selling his own plan thusly:

Obama told the Virginia crowd he would reduce premiums for most people by “as much as $2,500 per family.”

He would save money in the heath care system, he said, by holding drug and insurance companies “accountable for the prices they charge and the harm they cause.” He also said he would outlaw “insurance company discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions.”

So now, Obama won’t rule out the tax increase McCain wanted, and isn’t demanding accountability for drug and insurance companies. What exactly did you vote for again?

Flip-flopping now to compromise with some Senate Democrats in the pocket of the insurance lobby will end Obama’s 2012 hopes, if not his whole Presidency right now.