From Reuters:
Democratic U.S. presidential candidate John Edwards on Sunday said that he would raise taxes, chiefly on the wealthy, to pay for expanded healthcare coverage under a plan costing $90 billion to $120 billion a year to be unveiled on Monday.
“We’ll have to raise taxes. The only way you can pay for a healthcare plan that cost anywhere from $90 to $120 billion is there has to be a revenue source,” Edwards said on NBC’s Meet the Press news program.
The 2004 vice presidential nominee and former North Carolina senator said his plan would “get rid of George Bush’s tax cuts for people who make over $200,000 a year.”
ITEM 1: Why should people who make over $200,000 a year have to pay more taxes than those making $150,000? Why should people that have become more successful be penalized by paying more than their share of the overall burden? If you’re taking money from one group to fund the benefits of another group isn’t it called “income re-distribution”, and isn’t that a basic attribute of Socialism?
ITEM 2: Since when did it become a function of the federal government to provide for the healthcare costs of a US citizen? What law was passed by Congress authorizing it to take money out of one person’s wallet to fund the doctor visits for someone else? What was the name of the Representative or Senator that created a bill that compels me to give money that I earned in order that someone else can have cheap or free prescription medicine, while I have to pay full price for the same medicine?
Get used to this, people. Now that you voted for a Democratic majority in Congress you can rest assured that you just voted to have a larger percentage of your income taken out of your wallet to pay for the healthcare of someone you neither know nor will ever meet.
UPDATE from Stacy:
UHHHH, EXCUSE ME. Since when has any government controlled program efficiently conducted itself? A trip into your local department of motor vehicles will remind you of how inept the government is.
In my humble tax-paying opinion; I think that one of the best solutions for our nation’s healthcare crisis would be ::shudder:: TORT reform. Of course that would affect the scuzzy ambulance chasers such as yourself. You say health insurance premiums have risen 90% in ten years? Ya think that all those false malpractice verdicts have anything to do with that? Have you ever spoken with a physician about their malpractice insurance costs? Capitalism has proven itself time and again. Competition breeds efficiency and frugality. It’s the judiciary rewarding scum like you that has failed our healthcare system.
You dream of an America where individuals such as my husband, who works as much as 80 hours a week, has to give the lazy-assed losers his HARD EARNED MONEY.
Geez, Stacy, don’t hold back; tell us how you really feel. 
Democrat, John Edwards, healthcare
