Posted by
rycK on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 6:22:57 PM
The California Health Care Mess [Again]
We continue to be swayed and addled by the tears and howls of the Post-Fabian Era adherents where the advent of socialism must be fulfilled, we are told. It is only fair. And, they whine and they whine and they whine when some say no. The notion that everybody ought to have complete healthcare, extending even to massages, acupuncture, probably witchcraft, free marijuana, the mysterious waters at the Baden-Baden Kure, flying first class of course, capturing the curative essences from the tails of passing comets [H. G. Wells] and other follies. Somehow, for some who are attracted to politics, this strange thought is probably impregnated somewhere in their genes in preference to other attributes such as reason, immunity to crass folly and freedom from drug addiction, which would be better for society. Not so.
California, always on the precipice, has been signaled from Venus [or Hyanis] to ‘take the plunge on health care.’[1] What else is new?? The Golden State’s 6.6 million uninsured[2] present a delicious social imperative to encroach upon business and free enterprise. Let us soak the rich to pay for this project with monies which they done stole from us anyways. Who could reject these poor unfortunates, 1/3 of who live in LA County and many are illegal aliens? Well, they can vote!!
Neglecting the fact, for the moment, that most of these are illegal aliens, we need to look at costs and services and the ability of the system to deliver such. This wild notion broaches the boundaries of financial responsibility, something the left have no use for. There is no limit to how much they could spend. The left merely howls and rolls in the latrines with the view that all persons ought to have unlimited access to healthcare at no cost. They even cite Cuba and perhaps the former USSR as models of such a wonderful system.[3] It would mean tens of thousands of new union medical service jobs and more. What an opportunity to ‘redistribute the wealth’ as the ‘rich’ would pay for this program. How can we lose? It is free.
You lose because there are still a wide majority of voters who can smell a stinky puddle of offal in the middle of the political road. The electorate is not, as yet, as dumb as Hillary Clinton and her fellow travelers would like to believe.
We need to pause here in the analysis to peek at the next door neighbor in Oregon where they had a good time arguing about how to finance a similar program that would be free to all persons in the state.
Oregon attempted this folly a few years ago [4] and will soon try again.[5] In 2003, the state of Oregon tried to pass an $800 million revenue package with a hefty $542 million tax increase.
The prize:
(AP) Every man, woman and child in Oregon would receive full medical insurance - no co-payments, no deductibles - under a measure on the Nov. 5 ballot that would create the first universal health care plan in the nation.[6]
How wonderful! We can still hear the kazoos blowing in the carnival atmosphere of this circus. The pasties are still spinning.
“What we are proposing is ambitious and audacious, but we believe the health care system now is in a crisis," said Mark Lindgren, spokesman for the Health Care for All Oregon campaign, sponsor of Measure 23.” [7]
Here, 423,000 of 3,300,000 or 13% of the people were uninsured. And here was the tax punch:
“The Oregon plan would be financed by a new payroll tax of up to 11.5 percent on businesses and an increase in personal income taxes. The top rate would rise from its current 9 percent to as high as 17 percent.”[8]
What happens when you add 17 % state tax to the 30% federal tax?? Add in sales tax and do you broach the %50 tax rate?? I wonder. Apparently they think the can tax themselves into prosperity and good health.
This phony project would essentially have doubled the aggregate taxes in the state and the potential undesirable outcomes of such a plan were not even mentioned. Not even going to the worst case, it would have caused the following:
[1] Those with businesses would leave the state thus escaping the huge new taxes which would make them uncompetitive with business in other states and foreign companies. Investment in new business ventures with new job creation would simply halt .
[2] Those with high incomes would leave the state to escape high taxes.
[3] Worse, and not mentioned, was the propensity and high probability that anybody in the US, Mexico or maybe even The Sudan could hop up and move to Oregon to get free medical care. Oregon is not contesting their illegal alien problem at this time any more than California is. The flood gates would open. Free sex change operations would bring those who would Californicate Oregon in a flash. Think how big the AIDS clinics would be!
The three elements here apparently influenced the voters of this very liberal state in a slightly negative and it was rejected by 59% of the voters, a huge loss.
How financially ignorant and reckless can these worthless and imbecilic liberal Democrat social planners be? Are they all in rehab? Are the numbers on the work sheets obscured by dope fumes? Can they not see that doubling the Oregon state taxes [or any other state for that matter] from about 11 bln to 22 bln or a mere 100% would affect business??
No, they did not. They are frequently lazy, consummate liars and drug-crazed parasites, but they are not completely stupid. They know how to Grunt and Grab.
The slimy ploy here, seemingly missed in a similar occurrence that culminated with a flurry of tears and howls when New York almost went into default during the Ford Administration, is this: once implemented, such a plan would bleed and generate a host of moans and grunts that would eventually bring in federal funds to fund the deficits. Free money!! This is the typical slimy scenario of the left who have never been able to set up a decent economy that didn’t focus primarily on selling dirty guns while parading around as a ‘neutral’ [Sweden], liquidation of dissidents [USSR] or working the levers on dirty money storage[Switzerland]. They are good on bloody revolutions, dope addiction and spreading venereal disease, but not effective in government.
The latest California ‘plan’ rests on increasing taxes on cigarettes or such, since the state requires some kind of supermajority to pass new legislative tax increases [Proposition 13??]. We wonder why they cannot just tax marijuana sales, the biggest business in the Golden State. That and a tax on massage parlors might just balance the budget even with this impending disaster.
We all have to see, up front, that some phony socialist medical program would not functionally change the average health of our citizens as measured under the current system, and would simply sink the economy as well as the medical programs. Every citizen and all illegal aliens already have health care, which is free if they cannot pay. The left liberals will do anything to attract more illegal aliens to California so they can stuff the ballot boxes, glubber and beg for more federal funds and threaten to support socialized medicine on the federal level. They then get the benefit from the new voters whom they have bribed with these social programs. Dollars for votes, the old Democratic Way.
What we really need to see is Oregon or other Blue State actually start off with a generous doubling of taxes and implementing such a phony social program and then going down to the bottom of the financial sewers in failure. We need for the rest of us to watch them squirm and wallow in failure and self-pity and, then, explain to us all that their sorry socialist program was ‘politically correct’ and that Rush Limbaugh or the ‘rich’ ruined the greatness of this gesture.
We need a test case to refer to. CA or OR might be such a case. Let these fools bungle the job in spades as we look on and learn some basic economics.
rycK