MSNBC Host Floats Tax for Unvaccinated: 'They Are Collapsing Our Health System'
Thursday was not a particularly great day for those who believe the government should be doing everything it can to get vaccine needles in American arms short of using military snipers to hit the unvaccinated with blow darts. (For the people who believe the snipers aren’t a bridge too far, I imagine it wasn’t a spectacular day, either — although I’ll admit to knowing few in this particular cohort.)
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for private businesses with over 100 employees. According to Fox News, the court’s opinion said the Occupational Safety and Health Administration powers under which the mandate was administered “empowers the Secretary to set workplace safety standards, not broad public health measures.”
While the court upheld a mandate for federal health care workers by a 5-4 margin, the decision was a huge blow to the administration and vaccine-pushers everywhere (Despite the fact it was unconstitutional all along, something anyone who paid attention would have noticed. We’ve been pointing that out since day one here at The Western Journal, and we’ll continue to make sure readers know their rights as government tries to usurp them in the name of COVID. You can help by subscribing.)
But maybe there’s a way out — albeit a bad one. On Tuesday night’s edition of MSNBC’s “The Reid Out,” host Joy Reid — never really tightly moored to reality at the best of times — proposed her solution to dealing with those who chose not to get vaccinated: Taxing them more, reducing their pay or fining them.
According to the New York Post, Reid was joined on the show by infectious diseases doctor and Housing Works medical director Dr. Lipi Roy — wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “FAUCI,” just in case you didn’t know where she stood.
But, alas, it was Reid who brought the biggest helping of crazy:
“I feel like people who are willfully unvaccinated — fine, don’t get vaccinated. But they need to start to pay a little bit more of the cost of what this is doing to our system,” she said.
“There are fines that are levied that are places like Germany,” she continued, then noted IKEA had reduced sick pay for unvaccinated employees in the United Kingdom.
“At some point, don’t we have to make people who are just saying ‘I’m willing to take the risk to be unvaccinated, take the risk for me and take the risk for everyone I come in contact with.’ Shouldn’t they have to pay more into the system?” Reid asked.
“Because they are collapsing our health system. They’re the ones in the ERs. They’re taking it up,” she continued.
“If you have a stroke or you have a heart attack, you can’t get in the ER because they’re taking up all the beds — so shouldn’t they have to pay more?”
MSNBC’s Joy Reid proposes that unvaccinated Americans be paid less in the workplace (regardless of what their job is), face higher insurance premiums alongside groups like smokers, and pay higher medical costs if they ever get sick. pic.twitter.com/3DIPbGQjaR
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 12, 2022
Spitballing here, but if a vaccine mandate administered through OSHA didn’t make it through the Supreme Court and the Democrats can’t even get enough votes for Build Back Better, I’m assuming there’s not the legal wherewithal or the political will to make this happen.
However, perhaps the medical community could do their part in giving an unethical nudge: Dr. Roy, the one with the “FAUCI” shirt, argued for a “triage list” situation in which the unvaccinated only get “a certain type of care” as a “possible intervention.”
MSNBC medical contributor Dr. Lipi Roy treads just shy of saying unvaccinated people should be denied medical care, arguing they could be put on a separate “triage list” that would result in them only getting “a certain type of care” though she’s “not giving up on” them yet. pic.twitter.com/f2sX7hlX1S
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 12, 2022
This one probably won’t catch on. (Nor will the “FAUCI” shirt, I think.) However, as Reid pointed out, fines and reduced pay have been tried in Europe — and taxing the unvaccinated came close to happening in one Canadian province this past week.
According to CTV, Quebec Premier François Legault announced the measure on Tuesday, arguing that the unvaccinated needed to pay a “significant” financial penalty.
“What we’re saying is those people who choose to not get vaccinated, well, there will be a price to pay … because there is an impact on society as a whole, there’s an impact on the costs of our healthcare network,” Legault said.
While opponents have called it a “radical” idea that will end up being harmful, Legault said Thursday that he plans to introduce it for debate in the Quebec legislature in February, saying “all political parties will be able to vote either for or against and propose adjustments, if necessary.”
While Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wouldn’t weigh in on the merits of the proposal, he did use the issue to warn the unvaccinated that restrictions were tightening on them.
“And for people who continue to hesitate or to choose not to get vaccinated, they are losing privileges to do certain things, whether it’s get on a train or a plane, whether it’s travel internationally, whether it’s move forward with a job in the public service,” Trudeau said Wednesday, according to CNN.
Canada, of course, isn’t the United States, especially when it comes to our respective outlooks on personal liberties — and thank heaven for that. However, Reid’s tax isn’t just one of her kooky flights of fancy; this is something that’s been tried elsewhere and it’s been clear the Democrats have abandoned even a pretense of a carrot-and-stick approach, opting instead for a very large stick.
A tax on people for exercising bodily autonomy and refusing to take a drug they don’t feel comfortable with would certainly qualify as a heck of a stick. And while it might be difficult to get it to fly after the Supreme Court rejected the OSHA mandate, one wouldn’t be shocked if there were someone in the Biden administration trying to figure out how this one might work.
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