Corporate Taxes

So Maryland passes a medical liability reform bill that includes a 2% tax increase for HMOs, and the public cries, "Hip, hip, hurray! Evil capitalist insurance companies making money off of poor, sick people. They need to pay!". Then, they find out that the HMOs have simply passed that cost on to their customers. And the public groans, "Greedy capitalists!".

And I ask, "What else would they do?". Aetna is in the business of making money for it's shareholders. If their costs increase, so must their prices, or else their profit margins suffer. If their electric bill goes up, the customers pay for it. If the cost of labor goes up, the customers pay for it.

Earlier this month, Democratic lawmakers overrode Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s veto of a medical malpractice insurance reform bill that contained the tax, despite his warning that HMOs would pass the tax on to "those who can least afford to pay it."

This requires a warning? I'll let the Democrats and the people of Maryland in on a dirty little secret: corporations don't pay taxes. They don't pay income taxes, they don't pay their share of your social security taxes. The customers and employees pay it all. If I own a business and I'm thinking of hiring you, I must consider the total cost of your services. Whether I pay it to the government in the form of social security taxes, to an insurance company for health coverage, or directly to you in the form of compensation, it is all the cost of hiring you.

The reason the government set up the Social Security Program to be paid 50% by your employer is so that you don't ever see that money. And the reason your part is withheld is so you don't see that money either. We should have to pay it all, and we should be paid our full paycheck, and we should have to write that check to the government each month or quarter. Then let's debate Social Security.