What she has proposed isn't precisely to increase taxes on h/c insurance execs compensation, but rather to limit the tax deductability of these salaries *to the company*.

Unbelievably demagogic statement on her web site:

"The choice on my amendment is simple. Either you support revenues being placed in the Medicare Trust Fund, or you support the IRS sending a check to health insurance companies to subsidize the multimillion dollar compensation packages of their executives."

So, letting people & companies keep the money they've earned is now defined as "subsidizing" them. No one should think that this attitude applies only to senior executives...sooner or later, the Dems will get around to applying it to *you*.

An individual flat tax, though, wouldn't stop this, since it's proposed as part of the corporate tax rather than individual tax. (And I think flat tax for corporations is probably conceptually infeasible) The solution is to get morons like Blanche Lincoln out of Congress.

If CongressCreatures want to focus on excecutive salaries, how about they start with the "nonprofit" industry--which includes, but is not limited to, education. These institutions get *a lot* of tax benefits, and many of them also get lots of $$$ in direct government funding.

And a lot of their executives are VERY well-paid...indeed, it seems like the present definition of a "nonprofit" organization is simply that there are no pesky shareholders with whom one has to share the loot...