To the editor:
Our total healthcare bill in the U.S.A. represents 16 percent of the gross domestic product, $2,400 billion.
Additional administrative costs and fees bring that to around 20 percent.
When we buy a box of Kellogg’s corn flakes for $5, we pay a hidden sales tax of 20 percent, $1, to cover the healthcare costs of the Kellogg workers, the wholesalers, the distributors, the truckers and sometimes even the store’s employees.
If we buy a piece of meat for $10, $2 is a hidden sales tax to cover healthcare costs.
When we buy an airline ticket, not only do we pay for the airline’s healthcare, but also the Boeing Co.’s employees’.
On top of the 20 percent some people pay additional premiums and co-pays.
By abolishing or prohibiting employer-provided healthcare, an immediate 30 percent saving could be accomplished by eliminating the enormous overhead, the inefficiencies and fees associated with this system.
This would save $700 billion per year and provide the same or even better healthcare.
This saving is equal to the entire American defense budget.
It could even help to balance the federal budget in a meaningful way.
The hidden sales tax could then be replaced with a national healthcare tax of 12 to 14 percent which would result in sales taxes of around 23 percent in Washington state, instead of the close to 30 percent now. This would be more in line with international norms.
There are no nice employers, big or small, or a friendly, big government providing healthcare free of charge.
The taxpayers, the consumers in the end pay for everything, even the corporate income taxes.
A question must be raised, why are millions of people excluded, mostly the poor and not represented, from national healthcare while they are paying up to 30 percent in sales taxes which should include healthcare in full?
Healthcare is not a matter of risk and insurance It is a commodity that we all have to use. We all have to pay a national healthcare tax to cover everybody, not a hidden sales tax benefiting the privileged.
Stig O. Brandfors
Clinton
