Democrats' Rube Goldberg Healthcare Bill Could Raise Taxes to Pre-Reagan Levels

July 16, 2009 RSS Feed Print
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By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

The healthcare reform bill introduced Tuesday by members of the House of Representatives is something only Rube Goldberg could love. More than that, it's a bureaucratic nightmare that contains so many "revenue enhancers" and "pay fors" that it could send tax rates skyrocketing back near where they were before Ronald Reagan was president.

For the first time, under the House leadership plan, there would be a per capita tax on all health insurance policies. The revenue that tax generates, say those who have read the bill, would be put into a Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund that would pay to compile and analyze data about medical care that the new healthcare bureaucracy would use to determine what lifesaving treatments and services people could no longer receive because they were too expensive, because they were too old, or because the chances of success were too small. To put it another way, the people with health insurance would be taxed to pay for the government to figure out what medical care would no longer be available to them.

The House bill also includes an employer mandate that imposes a tax on a firm's total payroll of up to 8 percent if it does not cover its employees. But, says Americans for Tax Reform's Ryan Ellis, many businesses would actually find this helpful—as larger companies tend to have healthcare costs of anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of payroll, meaning the government's 8 percent figure represents to them a potential savings of 2 to 6 percent—if they dump their private insurance, forcing their employees to move to the government plan.

That's just a few of the problems with the House bill which, in point of fact, makes the HillaryCare bill of the early 1990s look like a sane and reasonable approach to reform. It's almost as though the writers of the bill sat down, looked at every promise about healthcare reform that President Obama had made to date, and deliberately tried to break it for him.

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Reader Comments Read all comments (5)

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I just had an idea. What if all the liberal democrats were allowed govern themselves how ever they want in their own part of the country. Then the the rest of us were left to run our part of the country how we wanted. I would be curious to see how that would size up. Only problem is i suppose that would become two nations at that point. Some states did it, why could we not do it on a national level. I find it totally unacceptable to live in a country with communist or socialist ideology. God Bless America, or what is left of it. By the way how many trillion dollars is this going to cost us, our children, their children? How many generations? What exactly is a trillion dollars anyway?

Art of FL 9:46AM July 26, 2009

Man, you are soooooo right! If we had more people speaking up like you we would all be better off! God bless your accurate comment. This country is full of wasted life looking for handouts, and live in a cycle of ignorance. They elected this Acorn fool so it can continue. Rude awakening coming in 2010/2012 !

Does it matter, Honestly of FL 4:50PM July 17, 2009

How on earth can people write, much less read this type of tripe? You didn't even read the bill did you Mr Roff? I trust the MMA more than some pundit trying to play bogeyman on something he knows nothing about any day. The one's in the field are all for this bill, as is over 69% of Americans who want this type of health care reform. The health and well being of Americans should not be left to the whims of Insurance companies record profits. They do not innovate new drugs or new medical procedures, they INHIBIT the innovation of new drugs and medical procedures. But, because they are a business industry, they get to skim money and deny coverage, merely making the folks at the top rich while folks die. Hell, even the Head of PR for Cigna, Wendell Potter, said recently that Micheal Moore was right in his movie sicko. Single Payer systems work, and they are cheap.

I am a small business owner and I can only imagine all the pent up economic growth from folks who stay in shitty jobs JUST because they are afraid of losing their healthcare. Think of how many small businesses don't start up due to healthcare worries and costs? Nine almost didn't start due to these specific reasons. I also like the fact that small businesses under 25 employees are exempt from the tax, and that is the vast majority of businesses in this country (like the one I own). Only the big Grocery type stores (which are Union anyway) and Walmarts of the world will be affected. And from what I understand, they are going along. It's the Insurance companies and their conservative allies who are the only ones trying to scuttle this bill by instilling fear. They should be ashamed because its ALL ABOUT PROFITS. Wean while Men, Women and Children die unnecessarily every day just to make the Insurance companies another buck for their CEO's.

halfstep of AL 2:29PM July 17, 2009

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