Untaxed health insurance benefits. Up until recently, it was a tradition basically grandfathered in. Reagan was the last president to publicly admit he'd considered repealing the exemption. Despite some experts' endorsements - some economists noted the tax would likely help control burgeoning health care costs while raising capital for government projects - Reagan quickly abandoned the idea amidst the shrieking from labor unions and insurance lobbyists.

The un-taxable health benefit craze lasted through the 2008 election, when Obama (somewhat ironically) pounded on McCain for suggesting he might repeal America's long-standing un-taxable health benefit policy. He went so far as to dub it the "McCain Tax" and "the largest middle-class tax hike ever."

Obama has since reversed that policy.

The argument is this: so called "gold-plated" health policies raise health care costs unnecessarily while employers try to limit pay as the cost of these health plans inevitably rise. Additionally, it's argued, un-taxable health benefits discriminate against low-income workers who don't have employer-provided coverage. Proponents of repealing the un-taxable benefits argue that the tax exemption insulates employees against the true cost of health care, leading them to use and demand more of it, driving up the cost. It's also argued that the exemption favors the affluent, as benefit packages for higher salaries often include expensive and extravagant health care premiums.

Opponents note that Obama railed McCain on the policy, and cite his quote that repealing the exemption would, in effect, be a "multi-trillion tax hike on the middle class." They claim that taxable health benefits do little to limit the cost of health care. Why not repeal the ban on importing pharmaceuticals from foreign markets? Generic drugs account for only 22 percent of prescription drug spending in the country, though they represent three-quarters of the prescriptions written. So, 78 percent of the nation's drug bill pays for 25 percent of the prescriptions written for name-brand drugs. The belief is that there are more ways to pay for health care than increasing taxes.

Whatever the outcome, I'll still be stuck paying for my own insurance until the government figures out a way to pay for national health care. In that respect, I hope the policy on un- taxable health benefits disappears as quickly as Obama's opposition to them.