...OK, taking a risk here. Risk that a greater dummy could arise and I wouldn't have a top category to put him/her in.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained....
Fanfare, Maestro!
The Dummy of Forever is the Oregon Legislature! They all get to share the award, which would normally be given to a single individual.
They share it for this whacko idea, now translated into legislation:
That it is right to add costs to Joe and Jane Average who HAVE health care, paid by whoever (probably mostly themselves), to pay for healthcare for indigents (a HUGE proportion of whom are illegal aliens). The same bill taxes hospitals up to 5.5% of their operating income for the same purpose.
Wait! The bill doesn't directly tax Joe Average's healthcare premiums. You're right, it doesn't, it taxes those premiums when they get to the insurers! However, if you believe that that the hospitals and doctors (docs who have their own clinics will be taxed along with hospitals) who ARE assessed in this taxing scheme won't pass it through, I have 11 Portland river bridges on sale, and I can make you a special Recession deal of all eleven for the price of 8!
But, it's for the Chilllllllllldren, Rivrdog. Surely you don't begrudge the Chilllllllllllllldren some of the healthcare dollars?
Well, yes I do, as a matter of fact.
I begrudge the Chillllllllllllllldren (and anyone else) tax dollars if they aren't actually citizens of this nation, since the rest of the world doesn't have to pay these new taxes, only Oregon corporations.
But Rivrdog, aren't YOU on government-sponsored health insurance?
Why yes, I am. I am on Medicare Part A and B, for which I have been charged many, many dollars in premiums over the past decades BEFORE I was eligible to actually USE the insurance. That's a paid-up policy (of VERY mediocre health insurance). I am also insured by the Government as a Veteran's benefit given to me in (partial) return for for my services of laying my life on the line for my country for 22 years. Between the two policies, which I EARNED, my healthcare is probably taken care of for life (well, the life of the Treasury, anyway, and it could be fairly short).
I don't give a rip who manages healthcare in this country, as long as it is managed well. The healthcare industry stumbles along at present, and is doing a so-so job of managing it privately. The government is going to grab management from them, and stands to do a WORSE job (history, people, the Government can't even run a bordello, remember?). Cost control seems out of the reach of either flavor of management, private or public. I won't see well-run healthcare in MY lifetime.
I DO give a rip about what schemes are used to pay for healthcare, and I DO give a rip that it is given away to people who have no legal right to receive it for free.
People die. If they haven't provided, somehow, as I have done, for their health care coverage, and they get sick or badly injured, they die. That is not un-constitutional, that's the natural order of things. If I travel to Mexico, I buy a health-care policy before I go. Private insurance to pay for a private Mexican doctor if I need one. Aero-medical evacuation included. When the Mexicans come up here, we should charge them for their health care. Since we're about to make all those illegals into legal immigrants, they can now be sold health care insurance, so get ready to do it, Government.
That includes you, Dummy of Forever, the Oregon Legislature.