Health Care for All Texas (www.healthcareforalltexas.org) would pool everyone in the state into one insurance plan administered by a nonprofit health care authority created by the state government. Employees would contribute 2.5 percent of income; employers would add 5.3 percent. The self-employed would owe 7.8 percent.
Mr. West insisted it’s not a tax-based program, though the premium rates would operate like a progressive income tax.
Source: Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Business Columnists
Well, this is one of the worst ideas I’ve heard since Hillary Clinton tried to nationalize our health care system.
Yes, it is a tax — when the government forces you to "contribute" a portion of your income, that’s a tax. And in fact, that’s an INCOME tax, something that the Texas constitution prohibits. In 1993 Texas voters amended the constitution to allow a state income tax only if approved by voters and limiting any such tax to funding of education only.
An attempt to impose such a tax will, I hope, be met with the huge resistance that it deserves. Yes, health care is a problem. But state mandated health care funded by a new "progressive" state income tax that will impose a particularly big burden on self-employed people is not the solution.
DEBRA LITTLEJOHN SHINDER
deb@shinder.net www.debshinder.com
