Congress's Joint Committee on Taxes has put out a preliminary examination of the Bush health care tax plan. Over the next ten years, they estimate it would raise taxes by $526 billion. President Bush had claimed the package would be a wash in net. Check out this AP article for more: President Bush's health insurance proposals would cost taxpayers $526 billion through 2017, according to a preliminary estimate from Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation. One Democratic lawmaker jumped on the figure Tuesday to describe the proposal as a tax increase. The projection, which comes from the committee's nonpartisan staff, is stunningly different from the administration's estimates as well as those from other independent analysts. The White House says the changes the president seeks in the tax code are revenue-neutral over 10 years, meaning the changes would have little impact on the deficit during that time frame. Bush's plan would do two things: For the first time, the cost of an insurance policy would be treated as taxable income. The cost includes both the employer's and the employee's payments. The result is that workers' taxable wages would shoot up dramatically. UPDATE: See this post for a good explanation of the estimate. LATEST UPDATE: A key aide to House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) just called the tax plan "dead for now" and said "it ain't going to go anywhere for the next two years."