Thank gawd we've got true progressives in office and a charismatic President! Reuters blogger James Pethokoukis:

You can add House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the group of Democrats or Obama allies (John Podesta, Paul Volcker, Roget Altman) calling for a value-added tax. (I predicted all of this days ago.) Here is Pelosi (via The Hill):

Pelosi, appearing on PBS’s “The Charlie Rose Show” asserted that “it’s fair to look at” the VAT as part of an overhaul of the nation’s tax code.

“I would say, Put everything on the table ...

Ha ha. Except single payer, of course, which would save the country $350 billion a year, since we wouldn't be paying the health insurance companies 30 cents on the dollar to deny us care. But whatever.

.... and subject it to the scrutiny that it deserves,” Pelosi told Rose when asked if the VAT has any appeal to her. ....

“They get a tax off of that and they use that money to pay the healthcare for their own workers,” Pelosi said, using the example of auto manufacturers. “So their cars coming into our country don’t have a healthcare component cost.

The real tax is the health insurance companies profits. As Anthony Weiner asked -- and nobody has answered, Quelle surprise -- "What do they bring to the transaction?" Answer: Nothing. It's the pure extraction of rent. And to pay for that rent, Versailles proposed to tax us more! (In addition to taxing those "Cadillac" health plans that unions won their membership, of course.)

“Somewhere along the way, a value-added tax plays into this. Of course, we want to take down the healthcare cost, that’s one part of it,” the Speaker added. “But in the scheme of things, I think it’s fair look at a value- added tax as well.”

Gad. Take the one health care policy that can be proven, by evidence, to save both lives and money, off the table. Then tax us for a policy where there's no evidence it works, and plenty of evidence it doesn't, and tax us to pay for the 30 cents on every health care dollar the insurance companies take.

These people make me want to throw up.