GOP Taliban attacks Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association for daring to “tax the rich” for health care

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

GOP Taliban lawmakers angry at a proposed ballot initiative backed by the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association that would raise taxes for the wealthiest residents to pay for some health care programs retaliated by proposing to instead tax hospitals and other healthcare providers. The GOP Taliban proposal by Sen. Carolyn Allen, R-Scottsdale was scheduled to be heard in the Senate Healthcare and Medical Liability Reform Committee on Wednesday.

Yesterday, the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association caved under this threat and intimidation from the GOP Taliban. Arizona Capitol Times » Healthcare group nixes plans for AHCCCS ballot measure:

The state’s largest hospital association has nixed plans for a ballot measure that would provide money for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System by raising income taxes on the wealthiest residents.

The Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association on April 6 announced that it would not file the ballot measure, which was to be known as the Arizona Family Healthcare Act, even though the group had filed a campaign committee with the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office several days earlier.

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The ballot measure would have called for a 1 percent income tax increase on individuals who earn more than $150,000, and couples who earn more than $300,000.

Without the ballot measure, the state must find a new way to replace $385 million in funding for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System that was cut from the fiscal 2011 budget. The federal health care bill passed by Congress in March prohibits the state from cutting Medicaid funding, and Arizona must maintain its current eligibility standards and coverage for AHCCCS or risk about $7 billion a year in federal health care funding.

The cuts, which would essentially roll back coverage that was expanded by voters under Proposition 204 in 2000, was expected to kick about 310,000 people off AHCCCS.

The state must also restore funding for KidsCare, Arizona’s arm of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides health care for about 38,000 children. Arizona was slated to save about $20 million a year by eliminating KidsCare, but the federal health care law forces the state to maintain that program as well.

Taxing poor people to give tax cuts to corporations and the rich, good. Taxing rich people to give poor people access to healthcare, bad.

The GOP Taliban health care plan is simple: if you can't afford health insurance, don't get sick. And if you do get sick, hurry up and die and "reduce the surplus population." It is Dickensian in its simplicity and cruelty.

When this political philosophy has become acceptable in public debate, what kind of people have we become?

UPDATE: The Senate Health Committee heard testimony about a proposed hospital-bed tax on Wednesday. Sen. Carolyn Allen, R-Scottsdale, had proposed the bed tax to get the attention of the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association. Allen conducted a lengthy hearing on the bed tax but said it was informational only. She said she had no plans to push the matter to the ballot.