The nice thing about the Post-Dispatch editorials is how predictable they are. The Illinois governor wants to provide healthcare coverage to everyone who has none, and the answer to how to pay for it is to tax businesses on gross revenue.
See, if you're a business, you can always make more money, right?
There's a lesson in there about a Goose, gold, and some kinds of egg. Mmmm. I like eggs.
Here's the real problem with this idea. Businesses that currently pay for health insurance for their workers are fools for continuing to do so in Illinois. Since the state is now offering to cover the uninsured, you can dump your health care costs on the state, and let your workers fend for themselves with sub-par state medical insurance. No more double digit insurance increases - no more whining from employees that want to know why they didn't get a raise this year (their answer is the raise came from the health insurance coverage costs). With the money you save by passing the buck to the state, you can give your employees their salary raises (even though their total compensation is now less).
If you continue to pay for insurance for employees - you're a sucker. You now have to pay twice - once for your employees, and once for the companies who drop their coverage.
As for small companies like my business - which has only two employees - I wonder why we're paying $7,000 a year for coverage when we could simply stop paying, and let other companies pick up the slack. Why should small companies shoulder the burden when the state forces large companies to pick up my tab?
The problem with that is the more that people like me, who are able to pay, take a free ride on the state, the bigger the costs, and thus the bigger the impact on those businesses who are forced to pay.
But they can always make more, right?
Let's put our cards on the table here. The purpose of the Illinois plan is to take piecemeal steps towards a national, socialized healthcare program. Once people get used to the state handling healthcare, we won't be able to go back to the ethics of individual responsibility. And when the tax burden is too great, as it always is when the government is involved, the state will have to start making tradeoffs to decide who to treat, and who to let suffer.
This is the problem with socialist programs. Their intent is to let government run your life, since you aren't smart enough to do it yourself. The Post-Dispatch editorial board, if they were being intellectually honest, would simply come out and admit this is the purpose of Illinois Covered.
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