So COVID has been a grotesque bonanza for America’s most concentrated industries. The long-term cure for the supply crunch is drastic re-regulation of the global logistics system, as well as rebuilding domestic manufacturing and supply. The Biden administration’s antitrust crackdown will also help reduce pricing power.
In the meantime, we need an excess profits tax, to tax away the opportunistic price hikes, just as we did in World War II. Profits that exceeded a normal rate of return, based on several pre-pandemic years, would be subject to a much higher rate of tax.
This idea will both spotlight the real source of the inflation and help pay for the domestic industrial policy that we need to prevent future supply shocks. Even if it’s not enacted, Biden should propose it. - The American Prospect
Sunday, February 13, 2022
An excess profits tax would be a good deal
Trying for it would be good politics, too.
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Looking for a spokesman for the idea ?
ReplyDeleteHow about Al Franken ?
In an amendment written by Senator Rranken into the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (aka ObamaCare) mandates minimum Medical Loss Ratios of 85% for the large group market and 80% for the individual and small group markets. MLR means that services have to reach at least that percentage or premiums have to be returned to the consumer. In 2020, Blue Cross Blue Shield reduced premiums in December in order to reach that target. Medica Insurance Company paid rebates in 2020 amounting to $8,776,714 to 27,214 Minnesota members based on aggregate gains that occurred from 2017 to 2019, which was an average $323 annual rebate per enrollee for and approximately 4 percent of Medica’s 2019 premiums. UCare paid rebates of $1,843,551. PreferredOne also paid rebates of $959,792.