Most Americans want to keep the federal income tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health benefits in place, and support for keeping the exclusion in place is bipartisan.
The American Benefits Council and America’s Health Insurance Plans make that case in summaries of results for polls the groups sponsored.
President-elect Donald Trump and congressional leaders have not yet discussed any concrete proposals for changing the current health benefits tax rules, but the Republican Study Commission, a group made up of U.S. House Republicans, has proposed providing a capped health insurance premium tax exclusion that would be available both for employers and individuals.
The American Benefits Council’s survey: The American Benefits Council, a group for large employers, addressed the issue by hiring a firm to poll 800 voters on Election Night by telephone.
About 93% of the voters who participated agreed with the statement that “employer-provided health insurance should remain tax-free because it encourages employers to provide high-quality, affordable health care coverage,” according to the council.
Just 7% of the participants agreed with the statement that “employer-provided health insurance should be taxed because it would raise federal revenue and discourage overuse of health care services.” the council said.
AHIP’s survey: America’s Health Insurance Plans, a group for health insurers, commissioned an online survey of about 1,000 Americans with employer-provided health coverage in July.
Only 29% of the AHIP survey participants supported the idea of taxing employee health benefits. The percentage who favored taxing health benefits was 34% for the Democrats in the sample, 28% for the Republicans and 24% for the swing voters.
Some survey participants were neutral about the idea of taxing health benefits.
The percentage of participants who opposed the idea of taxing health benefits was 58% for all survey participants, 61% for the swing voters, 59% for the Republicans and 55% for the Democrats.
About 63% of all of the AHIP survey participants said they would be less likely to vote for a U.S. House or U.S. Senate candidate who had voted to tax health benefits.