Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, is well known on Capitol Hill for his harsh criticisms of anything tax-hike related, including the possibility that Democrats would allow expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts on the nation’s wealthiest people. Yet here’s Gregg today telling MSNBC that a new tax slapped on folks who benefit from high-end, employer-sponsored health coverage is “probably where the funding [for health reforms] will come from.”

At certain levels. President Bush’s — it’s a carryover, actually, from President Bush where he suggested that people who — companies that provide more than $11,500 worth of health insurance, that to the extent it exceeds that number. So it’s a very rich plan that the rich — that the high-end people end up paying, that that be included in income.

And that’s reasonable, in my opinion. I mean, reasonable health insurance prices should be excluded from income, but when you get into high — high-end plans, why should everybody be paying for those?

It’s unclear, at this early stage in the year’s health reform debate, how many of Gregg’s GOP colleagues agree.