AN UN-HEALTHY INSURANCE BILL
By Bob Confer

The State of Maryland recently enacted a law forcing employers of 10,000 or more – specifically and only Wal-Mart - to dedicate eight percent of their payroll to health insurance or the State’s Medicaid fund. Maryland’s legislature deemed this necessary because Wal-Mart’s employees were supposedly placing too large of a burden on the Medicaid system, though statistics obviously proved otherwise.

This is socialism at its finest. The Maryland government went out of its way to dictate what a company should and should not do in terms of its non-capitalistic endeavors. It was essentially decreed that Wal-Mart has an obligation not to economic pursuits but to the betterment of society instead.

This forced benevolence did not go unnoticed by New York’s politicians. Ever the one to be the trendsetter in Big Government, the Empire State is developing a similarly-minded law, but one much more devious and over-reaching in scope. The Assembly and Senate are working on bills (S.7090 and A.10583) that would require all non-manufacturing companies who employ 100 or more people to spend $3 per hour per employee on health insurance funding, be it through HMOs or state-funded programs.

Our leaders, much like Maryland’s, are playing the Wal-Mart card in an effort to mask this bill’s all-inclusive scope. Using ill-conceived and completely unfounded propaganda commonly spread by those who despise Wal-Mart, they are painting Wal-Mart to be intrinsically evil, and an evil that can only be stopped by state action.

This is a smokescreen and a poor one at that. The truth be told, Wal-Mart’s impact upon Medicaid and insurance in New York is minimal. The company employs 34,000 in the Empire State, which is a measly 0.18% of the state’s population.

This Wal-Mart charade as is only a distractive measure being utilized by Albany to make people forget that our own government is raping us more than Wal-Mart ever could. For decades our leaders have been unable to curtail Medicaid expenditures or add common-sense regulations to the health care system. So, rather than fixing the root causes of our state’s financial problems, the State is instead looking at patching the holes with more money from the private sector. That being said, this health insurance fee is a tax, nothing more, nothing less.

The introduction of this tax would be absolutely disastrous to New York State’s economic well-being. An increased cost of $3 per hour is a pretty significant cash outlay. A retailer employing 115 people would have to pay an extra three quarters of a million dollars a year. Very few companies can adequately survive such a bombshell.

Under New York’s intended bill, small businesses, not giant corporations, will take the most serious beating. The vast majority of firms that will be affected are family-owned businesses, the very bread and butter of our economy. Sadly, they will be crippled to the point of death.

This added burden would negatively impact countless financial firms, mass marketers, or insurance groups operating in our borders and it would only add to the noxious repellent that Albany exudes. Even without this bill in place, many companies such as these choose not to move here and/or expand their New York operations. Instead, they actually move away. This is because NY is the second most expensive state in the US to operate in, just behind the logistically-impaired Hawaii, and some 44% above the national median. It is frightening to think of what higher level of misery this health insurance bill might take us to.

Be aware that businesses are not the only ones destined to be harmed by this bill. It will come back full circle to hurt all consumers as well as the workers the bill is supposedly designed to protect. Every Tops, Wegmans, Target, or Geico that you are buying goods or services from will have to jack up their selling prices or cut personnel to cover what will be in many cases a 25% to 40% increase in base labor costs. You will be spending a lot more as a consumer in order to fund this health tax. That is, if you are still lucky to have a job after the bill’s institution.

Simply put, this proposed health tax is a band-aid to mask the weaknesses of our state government and, in the end, will only come back to haunt each and every one of us. It’s a mix of socialism and capitalism-defeating heavy-handedness that will suck more money out of our pocketbooks and secretly increase government’s intrusion into society.

Now, there’s nothing healthy about that.