Monday, October 19, 2009

If Healthcare is a right, why should we have to pay for it?

We don't pay a poll tax to exercise our right to vote and we don't pay for a license to exercise our right to free speech. So, if healthcare is a right, why should we have to pay anything at all for it? Shouldn't liposuction and hiatal hernia surgery be as cost-free as that “right” Minnesota guarantees in Doe v. Gomez?

Well, the answer is this: as it turns-out, we might *not* have to pay anything ... anything more than we do already. Here’s why. Most states already bridge insurance coverage to make it accessible and more affordable. In Minnesota, for example, this year’s budget for the “Health Care Access Fund” is $1.103 billion. With the federal government owning this responsibility, the state will need to collect less taxes, Significantly less. More than a billion less here in Minnesota.

Has anyone calculated this savings to state taxpayers? Probably not because most state legislators see this as a general fund windfall which they’re free to spend elsewhere. Let’s not let them.

No conversation on national healthcare should exclude a discussion on the state money that no longer needs to be collected for that same purpose.

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