I Know How To Fix It

1. Allow all medical expenses to be deducted from your income on Schedule A. Eliminate the 7.2% rule. Full deduction.
2. De-regulate the health insurance industry; allow insurance companies to operate wherever they choose; let the free market and capitalism direct the course of commerce.
3. A tax-credit for employers who provide full coverage for employees.
4. Put the Social Security Trust Fund back where it belongs and get it out of the General Fund.
5. Allow employees to opt-out of the SS system with the corresponding employer match eliminated as well.
6. Institute a fair tax or flat tax.
7. Tort reform. Set limits on pay-outs.

What If There Were No Premiums To Tax

I don't know if anyone at the zoo has really thought this healthcare thing through to its logical outcome assuming they go through with a tax on the value of the employer provided part of your health insurance premiums.

I predict a massive cancellation of insurance coverage by individuals who won't stand still for another tax increase. If you don't purchase the insurance through your employer, you can't be taxed.

I see citizens banding together to purchase health insurance off the books with after tax dollars, resulting in a decrease of the tax revenue these Marxists are counting on to pay for the government healthcare.

If you're like me, you pay for your part of healthcare coverage with after tax income. (I hate those FlexPay plans...) It's expensive, or can be, depending on your provider. Assuming our portion is 25% of the total premium, we could be taxed at an earned income rate on approximately $600 to $1,000 a month in income we never recieve. I have never paid enough in healthcare premiums to qualify for a deduction on the Schedule A form, so the money I spend on insurance and medical costs is mine.

We have the right to do whatever is legal to avoid paying taxes. I'm not going to pay any more in taxes than I have to and I sure as hell ain't gonna pay taxes on non-cash, unearned income. I'll cancel my coverage and stick that money somewhere useful.

I will go looking elsewhere.

I see healthcare co-ops in our future. Groups of like-minded individuals banding together, forming some sort of 501(c) corporation and issuing RFP's (Requests for Proposal) to healthcare providers. We let them compete for our business, the way the system was intended and keep government out of it, the way the system was intended.

DHS Lexicon of Terrorism

From WND:

Two weeks before the U.S. Department of Homeland Security penned its controversial report warning against "right-wing extremists" in the United States, it generated a memo defining dozens of additional groups – animal rights activists, black separatists, tax protesters, even worshippers of the Norse god Odin – as potential "threats."

Though the "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" was reportedly rescinded almost immediately, Benjamin Sarlin of The Daily Beast recently obtained and published online a copy of the unclassified memo, dated March 26, 2009.

While many of the groups listed in the lexicon – such as Aryan prison gangs and neo-Nazis – may indeed be widely considered extremists, others will likely take offense at being described as a potential "threat."

For example, the memo defines the "tax resistance movement" – also referred to in the report as the tax protest movement or the tax freedom movement – as "groups or individuals who vehemently believe taxes violate their constitutional rights. Among their beliefs are that wages are not income, that paying income taxes is voluntary, and that the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which allowed Congress to levy taxes on income, was not properly ratified." (yep, that pretty much describes me)

The report, however, continues in its assessment of tax protesters, asserting that members "have been known to advocate or engage in criminal activity and plot acts of violence and terrorism in an attempt to advance their extremist goals."
(emphasis mine)

and for the record, I have never advocated or engaged in criminal activity or plotted acts of violence or terrorism to advance my goals

Similarly, the lexicon concludes its definition of "black separatists" by asserting, "Such groups or individuals also may embrace radical religious beliefs. Members have been known to advocate or engage in criminal activity and plot acts of violence directed toward local law enforcement in an attempt to advance their extremist goals."

In his blog piece titled "Who You Calling an Extremist?" Sarlin writes, "Partisans leapt to decry the first DHS memo as part of a Democratic conspiracy to marginalize right wingers. But it became clear that DHS's broad descriptions of extremists were symptomatic of an ongoing agency problem that crossed ideological lines."