Democrats divide over a proposal to tax health benefits

An effort by Senator Max Baucus of Montana to develop compromise healthcare legislation has come under assault by fellow Democrats who have urged him to abandon a plan to help pay for the bill by taxing some employer-provided health benefits. A tax on employer-provided health plans is favored by Republicans and several centrist Democrats, but opinion polls show the idea to be generally unpopular and several senators up for re-election in 2010 have said they oppose it.