Needed: common sense on health care tax

Valley Press on ^ | Friday, August 31, 2007. | Editorial

[BenLurkin]

We noted in this space a couple of times over this summer that AB 8 - the health care tax bill - is a bad idea, and now it appears legislators have actually listened to us and to several thousand California residents who let them know in no uncertain terms that AB 8 is a bad idea. After passing the Assembly, the bill stalled in committee in the Senate and was placed in the suspense file, meaning no action is planned. The circular file would have been better, but we'll take what we can get.

The bill would allow an unelected government bureaucracy known as the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board to increase taxes on employers to whatever level it deems fit to pay for a comprehensive health care benefit package proposed in the bill.

That's the first problem. It amounts to taxation without representation. If anyone is going to raise taxes, it ought to be our elected (meaning accountable to the people) representatives, not some nameless bureaucrats meeting behind closed doors.

In passing Proposition 13 in 1978, the voters made it a requirement that all tax increases must be approved by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature, and this bill is an end-run around Prop. 13.

With the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board calling the shots and deciding what is the appropriate level businesses should spend on health care, many employers who can't afford to provide coverage for their employees will get taxed money they don't have.

Democrats seem to believe that anyone who opens a business is independently wealthy and can easily pay for health insurance, but they forget that many businesses are just starting out or barely making it.

[Caramelgal]

This is a very bad idea that sounds like something Marx proposed: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” We (the Government) will decide for you, Mr./Ms. Business owner, just what we think you can afford.

It amounts to taxation without representation. If anyone is going to raise taxes, it ought to be our elected (meaning accountable to the people) representatives, not some nameless bureaucrats meeting behind closed doors.

The ugly truth is that our laws are not written by our elected officials any more. Most legislation and tax laws are written by lobbyists and special interest groups like trial lawyers, big accounting firms, and insurance companies and so on, with the help and aid of Congressional aides, none of whom are held accountable to us. Our legislators merely slap their name on a bill and I wonder how many of them actually read or understand what they are proposing.

But since Congress (both Democrats and Republicans) can exempt themselves from many of the laws they pass for us “little people” to abide and can vote themselves raises and perks whenever they want, they have even less accountability or motivation to do right by us. And it doesn’t matter as long as they and the media can spin us into believing it’s “for the children” and it’s only “to make the rich pay their fair share”.

Ultimately we, The People are to blame. We keep electing these “professional”, career politicians who have a vested interest in being re-elected and thus maintaining their place among the privileged class. And when they do leave office, they get cushy jobs with the same lobbyists that helped get them elected.

How many of our legislators have ever run a small business or had a “real job”? How many of us even bother to ask? And by the lack of replies to this post; not many.