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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2005-12-27

Don't Forget Those Unintended Consequences

This story came from the Monday Washington Times:

The roughly $40 million tax that Democrats in the Maryland legislature levied on the state's health-maintenance organizations soon will be passed along almost entirely to consumers, state regulators say.

The 2 percent tax on HMO premiums, which the General Assembly passed over Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s veto, will cost a family of four about $200 more a year.

Mr. Ehrlich and other Republican leaders warned last year that the tax would be paid by patients and called it a "misguided tax" from an anti-business, Democrat-controlled legislature.

"Unfortunately, patients in Maryland, not the tax-and-spend General Assembly leadership, are the only ones who will pay for this costly lesson in basic common-sense economics,"

Just remember that the next time your Democratic legislature tries to tell you about the need to "protect consumers from the greed of [fill in the blank]" Remember that their idea of "protection" ultimately is just a round-about way of taking more money out of your pocket and putting it into their coffers.
Posted by: Michael / 12/27/2005 01:35:00 AM

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