OMG. This just goes to show how out of touch Joe Knollenberg is with his constituents.
Knollenberg wants to give tax breaks to companies if they will hold seminars on things like smoking and weightloss. Knollenberg proposes giving taxpayer money to companies to hold such seminars. There is no requirement that those companies offer healthcare to their employees -- they can make money just by giving seminars.
Gosh, maybe Joe Knollenberg has a relative or friend who just started a company that gives these seminars.
If this is what Knollenberg thinks is the most pressing issue about health care he is not only out of touch with his constituents, but out of touch with reality.
* Going to a seminar about not smoking isn't going to help an employee afford healthcare for their family.
* Going to a seminar about not smoking isn't going to make their child's asthma medication any less expensive.
Instead, Knollenberg's plan just gives another tax break to companies.
Knollenberg's plan doesn't solve any problems. It just wastes taxpayer money.
Knollenberg's plan takes money out of taxpayers pockets and gives it to his Corporate friends.Rather than work on something useful like assuring affordable health care for everyone or coming up with a program that would take the costs of health care off the backs of our auto industry, Knollenberg wants to give taxpayer money back to his big corporate friends.
8 comments:
fd
Sorry about that.
This post just shows what you are smoking.
First, you misunderstand a tax credit. It's not a "gift of money" to corporations - its a partial rebate of money they would have otherwise paid - and its contingent on specific behavior - and the company pays up front for anti-smoking seminars and "saves" only part of it on the backend. For the company to "make money" off such a deal, it would have to supplement that savings with additional savings it would realize in the health insurance costs (health insurance it was paying for!) that were reduced and productivity gains from the reduced smoking, and those gains would not be quickly quantifyable. I can't imagine much incentive for a company not buying health insurance to participate in this little program - unless it encouraged them to buy health insurance as well because the combination of programs available made it affordable.
You on the other hand would seem to prefer that the government simply "picked up the tab" for ALL health care in the nation -- which would indeed be a massive "corporate welfare" program for those companies that already pay for health benefits, since they could simply stop paying for health care in the wake of the governmental guarantee.
So Joe does something mainstream and you criticize him? He works to solve a small part of a problem and you criticize him because he doesn't nationalize all of the problem (which won't solve the problem, it'll just change its nature and introduce government to it).
Guaranteeing a certain minimum level of health care to the poorest of individuals is possible, but it will require portable voucher-like solutions.
Apparently Knollenberg just wanted to say he was supporting a "health plan".
It is disingenuous to call this "plan" anything other than what it is -- CORPORATE WELFARE.
Knollenberg won't help families have access to affordable health care.
Instead Knollenberg is just going to give a $200 tax credit for every employee a company sends to a health seminar.
It isn't a health care plan. It is a TAX CREDIT FOR BUSINESSES.
And I do understand tax law. Under Knollenberg's CORPORATE WELFARE PLAN, a company that owed $1000 in taxes could instead pay nothing if they sent 5 employees to a free smoking cessation program run by the American Lung Association or the American Heart Association, etc.
This isn't a "plan" as much as it is a sad joke that Knollenberg continues to perpetrate on the voters in the 9th District -- Knollenberg represents the interests of wealthy CEOs at the expense of middle class families.
I wonder which Washington D.C. lobbyist got Knollenberg to propose that plan. After all Chet, isn't that what he does is just sponsor ideas for lobbyists like Jack Abramoff?
Like the $8 million he put in as a line item budget to force the government to pay that money to a company owned by one of his largest campaign donors.
Or the government money he and his friend Duke Cunningham (who was in Congress with Joe but is now in prison for accepting bribes) got for their big time lobbyist friend Mark Valente, III.
There is nothing wrong with encouraging more preventative medicine. But we have programs in place to do that through professional health organizations and the public health system.
Giving a tax credit to employers is just more of the same old CORPORATE WELFARE program that Joe supports.
In over 14 years of Congress, Knollenberg has never even proposed a single piece of legislation that would take the legacy costs of health care off the backs of our struggling auto industry.
Just like everything else Knollenberg does, this plan does NOT solve any problems, it merely redistributes precious taxpayer money into the pockets of wealthy CEOs.
When will Knollenberg stop his attack on the middle class?
The fact that you would attack a plan that promotes wellness and prevention in the workplace says a lot. Congressman Knollenberg's bill is receiving bipartisan support in metro Detroit.
Everyone with a brain understands that if you prevent chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes from occuring that we will reduce health care costs and be able to expand coverage to more Americans.
You are really against wellness and prevention in the workplace? Think this one through.
You seem to be having trouble with reading comprehension. Can you quote me the part where I said anything resembling opposition to preventative medicine?
The best way to prevent disease is to make healthcare affordable and accessible.
Knollenberg's plan just gives tax breaks to big companies. Knollenberg's plan proposes a tax break for companies that don't offer health insurance to their workers.
If the goal is to prevent disease, why not propose legislation that would substantive increase affordability and access to healthcare?
The extreme spin of this website is evidenced by the stretch required for this post. And without even investigating this particular bill, I'm not surprised there is bipartisan support on this one. And I'd like to see the specific bill before I'd criticize it this way (which, I note, this blog author hasn't done, not even in mimimal quote clippings to justify his argument in detail). Is there a limit to the credit? What are the qualification requirements? Etc.
I mean, yeah, tax credits have the potential for misuse as "corporate welfare," and I oppose their overuse. I'm surprised a Dem would oppose this one, but in this particular Dem's case his zeal and vitriolic hatred of Knollenberg, I not surprised.
It isn't that complicated. Like Joe's attention span, it is very short.
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