Taxing Medical Equipment Manufacturers is Foolish

A particularly abhorrent feature of the Healthcare Reform Bill is a new tax on the manufacturers of medical equipment. This tax is foolish and counter-productive at several levels. Consider the following:

1. The taxes on medical equipment manufacturing will ultimately be passed on to the average American, who is making considerably less than the much-touted $250,000 per year. Since medical equipment is ESSENTIAL, the taxes will just be passed on to purchasers in the form of higher prices.

Thus, taxing medical equipment manufacturers DIRECTLY CAUSES additional healthcare inflation, which Obama is supposedly opposed to.

2. Taxing medical equipment will ultimately decrease its' availability. This is because the tax will make equipment more expensive and less affordable, therefore reducing its' supply.

People who have successfully passed Business 101 or Economics 101 know that prices are primarily determined by the Demand Curve, or the Law of Supply and Demand. Unfortunately, by taxing medical equipment manufacturers, you cause the price of medical equipment to INCREASE, which will DECREASE it's general supply. That immediately causes REAL PRICE INCREASES in medical care.

3. The Manufacturing Sector in the USA is STAGGERING. It is trying to stay alive after suffering the consequences of the Democrats passing NAFTA, which virtually destroyed American industry.

Now the Democrats are back, kicking manufacturing in the head once again. Medical equipment manufacturing is one of the few areas where America still has some prominence, but rather than HELPING this industry, by passing economic stimuluses, the Democrats are shaking it down for more money!

Why does Obama give BILLIONS of dollars to worthless incompetents at AIG and Wall Street, but then STOMPS on one of the precious few industries that Americans still do well?

4. The medical manufacturing sector is one of the few areas where America could EXPORT products, doing something to repair our insane imbalance of trade. But rather than providing economic stimuluses to medical technology manufacturers, the Democrats CLOBBER them with more obnoxious taxes!

5. Ultimately, a good way to reduce medical costs is to INCREASE the supply side of the Demand Curve. This should be done by applying economic stimulus money to the building of new free clinics and new free hospitals. One of the more expensive parts of that is to provide them with equipment.

The LAST thing that you want to do is tax medical equipment manufacturers. This is totally counter-productive for all of the reasons cited above.

I should also add that I am a lifelong Democrat, but I will probably vote Republican in 2010. The behavior of the Congressional Democrats in the past few weeks is beyond reprehensible. I do not consider them completent to be running the Congress.

Draft 1: 3/25/10

Incompetent Handling of Healthcare Reform

Although I am a Democrat (more or less), watching the Democrats ramming thru so-called "Healthcare Reform" last night was really sickening. Truly, they have become Liberal Fascists. They have no interest in even hearing what the Republicans (about half of America) have to say. They are not interested in Republicans' thoughts or amendments, just their own poorly thought-out abortion of a bill.

I thought it was highly amusing that the Obama-loving media should tout this "victory" as a great Obama accomplishment. HA! This? Passing a bill with ZERO Republican votes is an "accomplishment"??? That's cute.

In fact, Obama could not even drum up 100% support from his own insipid, goose-steping Democrats. He had to furiously bribe and arm-twist just to get the necessary 216 victims to vote for this pile of stale pork.

It was also nauseating to listen to the endless LIES and half-truths of Obama and the Democrats. It was just endless populist pap, which was totally transparent to anyone with more than a 6th grade education.

We heard endlessly about how this would fix the "pre-existing conditions" problem with health insurance. A few thoughts:

1. If Obama and the Democrats had any brains, they would have limited the entire bill to the "pre-existing conditions" problem. It is, indeed, an enormously complex problem, and the Democrats' simple-minded solutions are almost certainly destined for years in the courts, probably reaching the Supreme Court, where the conservative majority will strike it down.

2. Having absolute ZERO Republican votes destins this bill to FUTILITY. Most of the local and state governments in this country, outside of the big cities, are run by Republicans and center-right Democrats. How do all of these exultant Liberal Fascist Democrats expect to implement and enforce this bill in those states?

Mainstream America is filled with Republican governors, Republican state legislatures and Republican State Supreme Courts. They'll do everything in their power to stonewall most of the bill. It's doomed to failure, at least for many years.

3. The bill is filled with pork and bribes. Louisiana Purchase, etc. If the bribes are taken away, the Democratic supporters of the bill will also drop their support.

4. The bill is extraordinarily POORLY thought-out. The IDIOTIC notion that you can force insurance companies to accept all people with pre-existing conditions shows that Obama knows NOTHING about business. This can only be done if insurance companies are allowed to MASSIVELY increase premiums. Otherwise they go out of business.

And if the GOVERNMENT wants to take over insurance, that makes it even MORE expensive than it is already. America is on the verge of bankruptcy. The dollar is coming to be worth little more than paper, but yet the ObaMORON spends and spends and spends and spends. He apparently thinks that "white pee-poe" have an infinite amount of money to give away to poor, oppresed black people. Like him and Oprah.

Poor oppressed Oprah! How does she manage to LIVE on a measely 2.5 billion dollars!!! Black people are all SO oppressed. And poor Michelle Obama! All of those years she had to scrape by on a mere 6 figure salary! All because she was forced to live in a country that she has never been proud of! How tragic!!!

I could go on for a few more thousand words, but I gotta get going. I shall return soon, to regurgitate more unpleasant observations.

Draft 1, 3/22/10