Bureaucracy run amok

Wyden’s “Free Choice Proposal” falls short

Dear Senator Wyden,
I just read your “Free Choice Proposal” and I must say it sickened me. Why with a Democratic controlled congress and White House are we looking at something like this? Why is health care being tied to employment at all? You don’t have to be employed to drive on the roads or get the fire dept. out if your house catches on fire? THIS IS NOT WHY I VOTED DEMOCRATIC!

We need UNIVERSAL health care regardless of income level. Sure rich Americans will want to buy supplemental health insurance, I understand that. But we should be expanding the Congressional health care model or VA health care model or the Medicaid model or adopt the British NHS model of universal health care. Not continue the corrupt practice of offering health care from providers that expect to make a profit from people’s illness.

How to pay for universal health care? Tax sugar. If need be, tax edible forms of fat also. We already tax alcohol and tobacco which are bad for people’s health, why not tax sugar and fat? These are not essential food groups that people can’t live without (there is enough fat in meat and/or vegetables to supply human needs). The proposal to tax sugary drinks is a step in the right direction but it doesn’t go far enough. Sugar, in all it’s refined forms, should be taxed at the wholesale level. This could provide all the money required to pay for universal health care and reduce the use of harmful substances at the same time.

Taxing sugar would not restrict investment in new business as a tax on the rich would and would place the burden on people who continue to eat unhealthy foods. Sugar, and fat are largely responsible for obesity and diabetes the top two healthcare problems in the US. This solutions seems so obvious as to be likely that congress will not do it, knowing congress’s track record of over complicating everything.

© 2009 apropos of nothing (à propos de rien).