Raising Taxes = Cutting Costs

I was reading a NY Times article about how lobbyists are fighting the “last big plans to cut healthcare costs” and noticed that one of those “big plans to cut healthcare costs” is actually a tax hike.

The tax on gold-plated insurance plans is the last vestige of most economists’ favorite idea, eliminating the tax exemption for employer plans. The finance bill would impose a 40 percent excise tax on insurance plans that cost more than $8,000 a year for an individual or $21,000 for a family.

The white house budget director referred to this tax when he said:

“A key priority now, is to make sure cost containment holds up as we move through the legislative process.”

They call it a tax on “gold-plated insurance plans as if only CEO’s get them. What gets conveniently overlooked is that some companies, such as Zappos, provide excellent health care to all their workers and would be considered “gold-plated”. Some of the labor unions have also negotiated “gold-plated” plans. Although some would prefer to simply exclude those plans from the tax. After all, labor is the democratic base.

Naturally the healthcare and insurance industries don’t mind since it will give them money. What they opposed were the provisions that would allow Medicare to negotiate pricing on prescriptions.

Only in Washington could a tax we pay be considered “cost containment”. If you feel the tax is a good idea at least call it what it is. This is what sends me over the edge in the healthcare “debate”. The politicians talk about controlling costs as if they are trying to lower them. What they really mean is they want to control who pays.

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Regulation Stifles Competition

I’ve always been of the opinion that often the primary outcome of government regulation is to stifle competition. Here’s another case that proves the point, brought to us by TechDirt.

Some new taxi cab services sprung up awhile back in Tampa, Florida. They use electric vehicles and don’t charge for the rides. The cabs are wrapped in ads and they only accept tips. The transportation commission licenses (and limits) vehicles for hire but there rides were free so they escaped regulation. Naturally the taxi drivers for hire didn’t like the competition.

But that’s all changed since the transportation commission recently ruled that the free cabs are actually for hire. So they need licenses. Except, but the way, there aren’t any available. So a new, seemingly well liked, transportation system has been shut down due to artificial limits set by government regulation. Luckily, Hillsborough county seems to be alone with it’s roots in the last century and other nearby counties are accepting the electric cabs.

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Fellow Senators Clear Dodd In Mortgage Scandal

Dodd’s fellow Senators on the ethics committee of cleared my favorite Senator of breaking the rules. He didn’t do anything they wouldn’t do. They did slap his wrist for using poor judgment in getting caught.

The New York Times article on the topic brings up an interesting point at the end:

Meanwhile, Representative Darrell Issa of California, the senior Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on Friday reiterated his call for a subpoena of mortgage records showing which lawmakers participated in the Countrywide V.I.P. program.

The subpoena would potentially cover mortgage records for the oversight committee chairman, Representative Edolphus Towns, Democrat of New York, who obtained two Countrywide loans for houses in Florida and Brooklyn. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Mr. Towns has resisted issuing the subpoena.

So, will we learn which of our other lawmakers received special treatment? Maybe those same ones who cleared Dodd? Hey at least now we have a precedent that there’s nothing wrong with being a “Friend of Angelo”.

I still don’t buy it that the Senator would have been a “Friend of Angelo” if he wasn’t a US Senator on a committee regulating the industry Countrywide was in. He was certainly made to feel he was getting special treatment, if he didn’t actually get special treatment it just means he was a sucker.

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Why Do People Blindly Trust Technology?

Our eyes are wrong, the GPS is right.

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Never Happy

First lawmakers and the public are up in arms about business travel to resort locations. Now they’re pissed off that government agencies are discouraging travel to these resort locations. It’s a different news cycle.

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Health Care Reform From This Guy?

Rep Henry Waxman This article in the New York Times just leaves me shaking my head. It could be good news depending on the result, and it was good for an ironic laugh. But no matter what, it shows how much trouble our politicians have put us in and how little chance we have.

Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the Energy and Commerce committee, is ignoring the fiscally conservative democrats on his own committee and since he doesn’t have the votes to get the bill out of the committee without them he’s threatening to bypass the committee. And those Blue Dogs (fiscally conservative democrats) are threatening to turn the committee over to the republicans (according to Waxman).

I’ve always said out government is at it’s best when no party is in charge and they are forced to work  together or do nothing. Now there’s the added amusement of watching a party implode.

The big downside is that Mr. Waxman will get the bill he wants. The absurdity of this is apparent when you consider that Waxman is a rep. from California. A state that is essentially bankrupt and paying salaries and bills with IOU’s. Now Mr. Waxman wants to make the California excesses national and is ignoring the people trying to reign in costs. The democrats say they want this to be a bipartisan effort yet they can’t even come to an agreement among themselves and are threatening to propose a bill that did not get approved by the Committee.

You still think this will be real reform? I ask again, what’s changing except who pays and the (increased) amount of money going to the healthcare industry?

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Perfection

Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox pitched a perfect game, 27 up – 27 down. DeWayne Wise was put in as a defensive replacement and showed exactly why when he robbed Gabe Kapler of a home run.

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