The New Healthcare Taxes Start

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This is the beginning of the end folks. The day that congress can start taxes to control behaviors is the day you better wake up.

So there should be a tax on all swimming pools outdoors to include apartment buildings. All 3 day weekends where you are outside at a BBQ. All outdoor parks need to charge a tax because you are in the sun there. Outdoor concerts, outdoor sports arenas. Beaches, lakes and all forms of sports that are outdoors where you get more UV rays than if you spent 10 minutes indoors.

Yeah.....then we can tax fast food, Cell phones because they emit radiation, MP3 players because they damage hearing. Tax anyone that takes ANY type of prescribed drugs because they have 2 pages of dangerous side-effects.

Oh and tax red wine, sardines and all birth control because they are in the same cancer risk category as the sun.

Then lets tax fresh fruits and vegetables because they were grown using pesticides that are known carcinogens. We better start taxing Tattoos because of all that ink under your skin and the long term implications. Tax all beauty products too because they have cancer causing Parabens in them. Oh and lastly...we need to tax SPF that you plaster on your skin because they just announced they were aware that they are causing cancerous tumors under the skin.

Lets tax all of you that don't go to the gym 5 days a week too! Yes..we have such an incredibly healthy nation. The US holds the title for most overweight people and we are the joke of the world.

Who cares if anyone chooses to tan..let them as it is their choice. You have to look at the bigger picture people...the government has no right to tax people to change a behavior..PERIOD. Don't you find it interesting that they dropped the tax on injecting BOTOX (poison) into people and threw the tanning salons under the bus? If it really was causing skin cancer then they would shut it down as well as beaches and parks and outdoor pools. Secondly, gyms and medical providers that use tanning beds are exempt from the tax...interesting. The bottom line is things you eat everyday and things you use like cell phones are ALL potential cancer causing vices.

You need the sun like you need water. Perhaps we should stop drinking water because water CAN kill you. Yes, water drowns you and too much water kills you. So we need to rid the world of water right away. Too much sun is bad..too much water is bad. Get it?

My nephew was born with a major spinal disorder. From birth he was bedridden. He was diagnosed with melanoma skin cancer at age 12..HE NEVER spent a day EVER in the sun nor as you can guess did he tan inside.....SOOOOOOOO the sun caused his skin cancer?

Katal of CA 12:25AM September 05, 2010

Fried chicken is bad for you too. Is Obama gonna throw a 10% tax on it? NO!! Why? Because black people eat fried chicken. One thing they don't do is go to the tanning bed. The tanning tax is a racial tax. Bottom Line!!!! I don't recall Obama talking about adding "vice" taxes. I do recall him saying that if you make less than 200,000$ that your taxes wouldn't go up one dime. Obama...... You are already a lame duck. Don't tread on me!!!!

Ron of NC 10:11PM July 08, 2010

This is just another vice tax!

No different than taxes on tobacco or liquor.

Just another idiot tax and if idiots want to use tanning beds, let them and tax them.

Skin Cancer is rampant and raising health insurance rates for everyone else.

LR of ID 6:58PM July 07, 2010

Sure

Bill Hedges of MO 8:52PM July 05, 2010

First of all, if your reading comprehension was at an adult level, you would have realized that I actually answered your post on health care. I answered the part about an expanded, diversified risk pool. You answered that people purchase health care only when they need it. THIS IS PRECISELY THE PROBLEM, BILL! The health insurance mandate was demanded in congressional testimony not by liberal democrats but by a major representative of the health insurance industry. Angela Braley of Wellpoint, one of the biggest insurance companies in the US, testified to congress in 2008,

“In November 2008, our industry came forward with an independant framework of policy proposals that would help control costs and help improve health insurance markets for consumers. Included in this framework was an effective, enforceable personal coverage requirement that would expand and stabilize the individual health insurance market even when combined with requirements on insurers to accept all applicants with no pre-existing conditions exclusions…”

http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20100224/Braly.Miller.Testimony.pdf

The reason health insurance companies like the mandate is because it provides them with a very large, profitable captive market. They hate the public option because it reduces their market, makes them compete with the government and reduces their profits (all the while making sure that many people get affordable health care). Health care corporations like the status quo because they can bill the government for medicaid and medicare at the rates they so desire. The public option would restrict their profits because many health care companies are HMOs and PPOs which combine insurance with health care. They also don't having to compete with a public option. They, like all sectors of the health care industry, like the insurance mandate because it provides large amounts of guaranteed business.

The argument that anything the government does by way of taxes, fees, regulations or laws gets passed on in higher prices is a hollow one. Anything can be passed along in costs up to a point. You neglect the costs of not having progressive taxes or, in this case, health care coverage for everyone. Nothing could possibly result in higher costs than the existing health care system as it currently is. The government will subsidize those employers required to provide coverage by law. Health care costs are escalating every year more than any other cost in the economy. One government website notes that, "Health care costs doubled from 1996 to 2006, and are projected to rise to 25% of GDP in 2025 and 49% in 2082." They also note that employer health care costs are increasing faster than any other business cost at the current time. Obama's reforms will control this and strengthen everyone's financial position. The public option, which the GOP opposed, would have done this most effectively but we got stuck with the mandate.

http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/inaction/

steve of IL 4:50PM July 05, 2010

Still no answer to my comment below yours.

Go figure. Diversion.

Told you I would answer and when. Guess you do not want me to answer your long comments. You won't answer me frst.

Go figure !!!

Bill Hedges of MO 1:32AM July 05, 2010

You both dodge answering my claims directly. I work hard to answer yours. All I can say is that right wing fools are publicly demanding that Obama waive a law that has nothing to do with the Gulf Oil spill in the first place. The right is attacking him because the GOP has rich people to protect and Obama might cost them a few bucks. It is disgusting greed and undemocratic. And guess what Bill. You and many others are part of the evil scam.

steve of IL 2:02PM July 04, 2010

I always report your vulgarity and personal insults. If you don’t want your comments erased then stop that behavior. You hold your destiny in your hand.

My earlier comments. Least you forget... I have not...

..........

"You never responded to my " Steve of IL Part 1" and 2. All that next bunch of writing of yours is other stuff. You respond to my part 1 & 2 then I will to all that writing you did. A simple I was right in part 1 & 2 would do."

..........

"A non-response to my last comment. Diversion."

"Your response has nothing to do with my last two comments."

"Not that I blame you. If I was you and hated to be proven wrong.."

"I have proven you used 2006 instead of 2008 numbers from your own link. We're past that. Old story. Done. Now I have more mistakes of yours to prove. The present ones. Today."

Bill Hedges of MO 11:08PM July 03, 2010

I don't know why they attack and persecute me. They allow aura dawn to print the same brainless, bigoted anti-Catholic nonsense 30 times in the same thread but I post something interesting, informative and well documented and I get deleted for my trouble. If there is in fact foul play among the moderators, it only goes to show that they feel less threatened by morons like aura dawn who confirm their image of the "left" than by scholars like me with empirical proof and analytical brilliance. Oh, well. It's time to debunk more myths.

steve of IL 5:37PM July 03, 2010

You can give all the republican links you want, However saying republicans support America is an insult since they support big businesses and corporations that do not support the united states.

They do not support the united states because they out source jobs .

They support other nations by supplying other nations jobs then they sell us what other nations produce stealing from America twice. Big business and large corporations Go against our Constitution and the united nations human rights act by enslaving Americans to debt that cannot be paid.

We are a manipulated people, We are not free. We gave up our freedom because we became greedy. We gave up family values for a two income family which did nothing but create the need for most families to become a two income family. However we will still try to get ahead no matter what.

As Albert Einstein said: “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them"

Is it not time for a true change from this madness of fortune hunting?.

What else can we do other than stay on the road to destruction that big business and large corporations are leading us on?.

Answer that and we might be able to have yet a better America.

I am not a democrat or a republican, I am a independent American who believes in community and our country. When I walk down the street I greet those I pass. I prefer country living as much as possible because most big cities most do not know there neighbors and I have a hard time living like that.

In the country you have many friends in the city you have many acquaintances everyone who might walk over you to improve there lives and feel good doing it.

I am not rich in money because I will not walk on my brother to improve my life while at the same time destroying another life.

Are you Democrat, Republican or are you an American???

Don D. Brock of AZ 1:36PM July 03, 2010

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Peter Roff

Peter Roff

Peter Roff is a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report. Formerly a senior political writer for United Press International, he’s now affiliated with several public policy organizations including Let Freedom Ring, and Frontiers of Freedom. His writing has appeared in National Review, Fox News’ opinion section, The Daily Caller, Politico and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @PeterRoff.

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