Maryland's Healthcare Bill

Yesterday Maryland's legislature overrode a veto by the state's governor to pass a bill that would require, "employers with 10,000 or more workers in the state must spend at least 8 percent of their payrolls on health insurance, or else pay the difference into a state Medicaid fund."

While the public's interest in this was surely fueled by the ever-present animosity against Wal-Mart, it seems that the real justification was just that Maryland can't handle its own Medicaid bill, so it is simply passing that cost onto Wal-Mart.

The great thing (and I am being sarcastic if you didn't notice) though, is that this will simply force Wal-Mart to have higher costs, which in turn will cause it to raise its prices. This will harm the sort of people that shop at Wal-Mart, as opposed to the sort of people that shop at organic yuppie markets. So what does this mean? Well it means that the poor are now going to end up paying more for their own healthcare instead of progressive taxation paying for the healthcare.

That sure as hell sounds like something liberals ought to get behind.

Don't you love it when government clearly avoids its clear responsibility and fucks over the poor in doing so?

-Mr. Alec