Article excerpt:

TAKE the tax cut Labor didn't want to give you at the last election and subtract the cost of the health system it wants to give you in its next term.

That will get you to the nub of Kevin Rudd's dilemma. He is carrying tax cuts skewed to higher income earners, but he can't pay for his health reform agenda simply by soaking the rich.

The proposed Denticare levy is to sit on top of the existing Medicare levy, so it starts eating into household budgets in the lower rungs of the income ladder.For people on between $25,000 and $35,000 a year, the levy would wipe out the small tax cut due to them on July 1 next year.

... The changes to the private health insurance rebate will add up to $6 a week to the cost of healthcare for higher income singles from next July.