This is not easy for me to say, but in light of our political leaders' inability to make sound decisions about the future of our health-care system, I want to make a one-time offer: Please tax my health benefits.

I've got no hidden agenda. It wouldn't hurt me at all if Congress pursued other options, like following the House plan to tax top income earners or raise taxes on small businesses. They would all help raise the $1 trillion or so needed to provide health care for all.

But any new tax that doesn't attempt to bring down health-care costs would not be worth the paper my checks are printed on. It would simply raise money to pay for an increase in medical spending, robbing the rich to give to the already well-off hospitals, doctors, health insurers and pharmaceutical companies. And as the director of the Congressional Budget Office has told lawmakers, if government spending, led by outlays for health care, continue to rise at the current rate, we'd have to raise tax rates to "levels never seen in the United States."

Americans don't simply want more money with which to give more Americans the same expensive, inefficient health care that got us to this breaking point in the first place.

As poll after poll has shown, Americans want health-care reform because health insurance is already too expensive. A tax on benefits is the only tax that would bring down health spending and help make insurance more affordable.

Most economists agree a tax on benefits would make consumers sensitive to the cost of health insurance. We would have a choice: Either we could choose gold-plated plans that paid any doctor for any service they provided; or we could choose less expensive health plans that managed to provide the greatest benefit at the lowest cost.

A tax on the value of health benefits would give consumers an incentive to choose more wisely. And it would give health insurers an incentive, too. They would be encouraged to provide higher-quality, lower-cost plans to win over cost-conscious consumers. Now that would be market reform.

Right now, our best hope for this kind of sound health-care tax policy rests with the Senate Finance Committee and its chairman, Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, who has taken on the challenge of creating a bipartisan health-reform bill that is also budget neutral. Not coincidentally, the committee is seriously exploring taxing health benefits.

The way it would work is simple. If you made $50,000 a year and your health plan was valued at $5,000, your taxable income would be $55,000.

In one option under consideration in the Finance Committee, a tax would apply only to people whose health plans are more expensive than the health insurance offered to federal employees -- expected to be valued at $6,182 for individuals and $15,700 for families in 2013, when the tax would presumably take effect. This option would raise an estimated $418 billion over 10 years. Not only would it be the single greatest source of money to help pay for reform, it would encourage consumers to choose plans that gave them more bang for their buck or face an increase in taxes.

Of course, in the turf battle that is health reform, there are many who feel they have more to lose than to gain by a tax on benefits. That thinking is shortsighted.

Some argue it would hurt the sick and the elderly, whose plans tend to be expensive since they require more medical care. But taken with other proposed health reforms -- like not allowing insurers to base the cost of insurance on how sick or old people are but rather on the cost of providing care in the community -- a tax on benefits would not adversely affect older or sicker people. The cost of their premium would be similar to what a young, healthy person must pay.

Unions, which have among the richest health packages, oppose a tax on benefits, saying they have made sacrifices, like giving up wage increases, so they can protect their generous health benefits.

But this is a false choice. As the recent experience of General Motors has shown, health benefits are great, but not if the company providing them goes bankrupt. Just ask the nearly 50,000 GM retirees from non-United Auto Workers unions. A bankruptcy judge ruled this month that GM does not have to provide the $3 billion in health benefits it owes these unionized retirees. Now these hard-working men and women are left with nothing.

Sadly, employers who constantly say they are at a competitive disadvantage because of health-care costs have not supported a tax on benefits, again for parochial reasons. They say taxing benefits would limit their ability to attract the best and the brightest with lucrative health packages. But employers can't have it both ways: Either health-care costs are threatening their ability to remain competitive in a global economy, as is their common refrain, or everything is fine and they should feel free to provide over-the-top medical benefits packages that get more expensive every year.

As long as gold-plated health plans pay for every medical service, without regard for need or quality, the status quo will persist. Doctors and hospitals will get paid not for the quality and efficiency of their care but simply for the number of services they bill for. The result will be health reform without cost reform. There will be insurance for all, but at a price no one could afford -- not without raising taxes again in the future.

Congress and President Barack Obama should have the courage of their convictions to bring down health-care costs and implement tax policy that makes good health policy. But they should hurry up. The closer we get to tax season, the less magnanimous I'm going to feel.