A Quack Tax

I am becoming increasingly angry as the health care reform push sputters and stalls. The August Congressional recess has provided not so much an opportunity for a reasoned debate on the subject; but rather an opportunity for every whack-job in the country to achieve his/her 15 minutes of infamy. Much of this has been sponsored at great cost by the insurance industry and their flaks - paid for with your health care insurance premium dollars of course - but there has also been plenty of elbow room for free-lance agents provocateurs as well.

All too many Democrats are running for cover or at least keeping their heads down. Not all of them however. I took great pleasure in Representative Barney Frank's approach at one of his own town hall meetings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYlZiWK2Iy8

At any rate, I would like to take just a moment to offer my own suggestion on how to help defray the cost of reform - something that, to the best of my knowledge, has not been discussed. What I propose is to slap a hefty 50% Quack Tax on the produce of America's alternative medicine industry - the pills, elixirs, potions, and supplements that Americans spend billions and billions on every year without any meaningful assurance whatsoever that they do the slightest bit of good.

This is not to suggest that ALL such practices and remedies are without value. Indeed, I propose that the tax not be imposed for five years to give manufacturers time to conduct appropriate science-based studies of the efficacy of their products - equivalent to the FDA requirements for prescription drugs. If, as it turns out, a certain product CAN enlarge the nation's collective penis or reduce the nation's collective waistline (without a change in diet or exercise as is typically claimed) then so much the better. If not, well I think a 50% surcharge is actually quite modest.

Given the trillion or so dollar price tag of real reform over the next decade, the Quack Tax is certainly no silver bullet. But it is at least a constructive proposal - unlike calling President Obama a Nazi or frightening the peasants with talk of mythical "death panels."

So there you have it.

In other news, it's been a relatively quiet week. We had a break in the rain on Wednesday and I got auntie's grass cut. Ran a bunch of other errands for the elders - stocking the pill larder, and buying poor ol' dad his first box of disposable undergarments to name but two. And sometime this week our firewood guy should be dropping-off the last cord of wood of the season.

Last evening I went out for pizza with my buddy Jerry Fuller from Anchorage. Jerry's still a wage-slave for my old department in Anchorage. Hadn't seen him since last winter. Didn't take long to catch-up on news from the department - it's like a soap opera - you can miss months and months of the show and still get caught-up in about ten minutes.

Life goes on! Have a great weekend everyone...