Sen. Max Baucus’ latest health-care idea, a tax on insurers and employers to pay for covering the uninsured, is already getting a thumbs-down from one liberal think tank. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities asserted today that Baucus’ plan would discourage the hiring of low-income and minority workers. The center’s Judith Solomon and Robert Greenstein explain:

Under the proposal, employers who do not offer health coverage would have to pay the full cost of the subsidies provided to employees who purchase coverage through the new health insurance exchange and qualify for a subsidy because their family income is below 300 percent of the poverty line. But employers would not have to contribute to the health insurance costs of employees with higher family incomes. The new requirement would apply to firms with 50 or fewer employees.

The incentive effects are clear, Solomon and Greenstein write:

The proposal would make it considerably more expensive for employers to hire workers from lower-income families than workers from higher-income backgrounds to do the same job. … Low-income women with children in one-earner families would be particularly disadvantaged.

Both the Baucus plan and straight employer mandate, often called a pay-or-play rule, would discourage employers from adding workers. But if we’re going to make employers bear some of the cost of expanded coverage, at least we shouldn’t do it in a way that encourages workplace discrimination.