Posted On: January 25, 2005, 7:46 am CST

Posted By: tom farr

There is a temptation to look at insurance premiums as a "safe" and anonymous target for tax revenue. However, there seems to be some flaws in the reasoning for the proposal as quoted in the article. For example, what about uninsured or self-insured people or entities? Don't they use the services as well? If the insurance industry is going to pay for this, what's the incentive to negotiate market-rate salaries and benefits for police and firefighters? The insurance industry apparently will have no input into these costs, yet will be asked to help fund them. Will this tax be subject to recoupment from policyholders in the form of higher premiums? In short, lots of problems with proposals such as this, no matter what state they come from.