Hang up on this tax

OC Register ^ | 11/25/03 | Op/Ed

[NormsRevenge]

Dial T for another tax increase? That's what is being proposed in petitions being circulated to increase the state surcharge on telephones to raise money for emergency health care. The surcharge - really a tax - would jump to 3.7 percent of telephone-use charges from the existing 0.75 percent - a 393 percent increase.

[NormsRevenge]

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[NormsRevenge]

The initiative is sponsored by the Coalition to Preserve Emergency Care, which includes the California Medical Association, the Emergency Nurses Association of California, California Professional Firefighters and other health groups. They need to gather 598,105 or more signatures by April 12 for the initiative to appear on the November 2004 ballot.

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I wonder who they supported the last few years politico-wise in Sacramento? (That is not a trick question.)

[Kozak]

Emergency rooms could be consolidated because "every hospital need not have one," he said. "Instead of lots of mediocre ones, have fewer excellent ones." More could be charged for emergency services. And ERs could be used only for, well, emergencies.

Great. Now all he has to do is REPEAL EMTALA a federal law that MANDATES everyone who presents to an ER get examined and "stabilized" ie treated. Oh yeah, no provision for payment. Believe me LOTS of hospitals want to close their ER's because they are money losers. Don't support a tax answer to this but this problem is getting critical. ER visits are growing by large amounts every year, while the resources hospitals can invest on them shrink.

[Fudd]

My question is... what does telephone service have to do with hospitals?

[SAJ]

Absolutely nothing. But, y'see, you're asking rational questions, whereas NGOs and pols not only don't bother to ask such questions, they seek to shunt such questions off or otherwise avoid them. NGOs want your money, period, for their little agendas, and they don't give the tiniest damn how they get it; contributions are nice, but the point of a gun is much more effective.

For their part, politicians only want votes, and NGOs can generally deliver more of those to them than you can. It's a completely unholy alliance, but you and I are nevertheless effectively scrod every single time that the bleeding hearts want to reach further into our pockets.

The only solution, in this particular case, is for all or almost all hospitals to close their ERs, wait for the screaming to start, wait a bit more for politicians to feel threatened (the only way to deal with them) and subsequently repeal the ridiculous unfunded mandate that they foisted on the hospitals some years ago.

FReegards~!

[goldstategop]

Its outrageous. If they ask me to approve this turkey at the polls, this is one tax I will definitely hang up on with gusto!

[Eala]

My question is... what does telephone service have to do with hospitals?

Spent several days in Denmark recently; they had an outrageous tax approximating US$2/min (or, if I have it inverted, US$1/2min, still bad) for local phone calls from hotel rooms. Whatever they wanted the money for, they got nothing from me; I just gave up FreeRepublic for a few days. And I'm not ever (voluntarily) returning to Denmark, certainly not on my own dime.

[tubebender]

help pay the share of emergency-room services used by illegal immigrants. I'll bet if we turn over a rock we will find something like this in the new Medi-scare bill along with dozens of other goodies because Washington has lost all sense of pay as you go. It will just be added to the ever growing debt...