Maryland's $119 Million Stealth Tax Hike
By Bluey Posted in Featured Stories | State Politics — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Joseph Antos wants to make sure Maryland's taxpayers are fully informed about the $119 million health-care decision the state's liberal bureaucrats recently enacted. As a conservative commissioner on the state's Health Services Cost Review Commission, Antos may be in the minority. But that hasn't kept him quiet.
My Heritage Foundation colleague Bob Moffit shared a statement from Antos that's getting some much-needed attention in the Free State. According to Antos, a health policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, taxpayers got the raw end of the deal when the commission signed off on a plan that he considers a boondoggle for hospitals
Antos' concerns extend beyond the hit Maryland taxpayers will feel in their wallets. He lambastes his fellow commissioners for conducting their business out of the public's view without debate. Antos said the proposal was negotiated with hospitals, but not insurers -- fostering the impression of favoritism. He also suggests that the commission was biased toward a proposal that ultimately cost taxpayers more money.
Even in a liberal-leaning state like Maryland, you'd hope transparency and free-market principles would ultimately prevail. Unfortunately, Antos informs us, that's not the case.
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Maryland's $119 Million Stealth Tax Hike 3 Comments (0 topical, 3 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
the problem is, many of the welfare recipients are called lobbyists and don't think of themselves that way. Which is the biggest part of the problem: Maryland is too close to DC, so its economy is seriously frelled, and even the usual unpleasant enducements to good government (such as people moving out) don't apply here.
Well, maybe for the first month you lived here, but after that...
It isn't power that corrupts, it is one party rule, whether legally enforced or otherwise.
I'm supposed to be upset with this? Sorry, I can't oblige you: Marylanders deserve whatever the corrupt politicians in this sorry state can dream up. Dumping Ehrlich for O'Malley and saying so long to Michael Steele in favor of... I can't even remember the sorry idiot's name. Sending Stymie Hoyer to congress again, and again, and again, and again...and why? Because mommy and daddy did, that's why.
I hope the Maryland legislature continues to pile on the tax hikes, loosen the moral bonds that used to bind us, ban as much freedom of speech as they can get away with, pack their freezers with as much cold hard cash as they can steal, and turn the once proud Free State into a welfare state as quickly as possible; shouldn't take long since the proles here don't think for themselves anymore.