Group criticizes Baker’s “Penny-a-pill” bill
http://www.willmarradio.com/news/group-criticizes-baker-s-penny-a-pill-bill/article_c8c5dd30-2144-11e8-ac25-6f72b64634e2.html
(St. Paul MN-) Twila Brase, President of Citizens’ Council For Health Freedom, has criticized Representative Dave Baker’s “penny a pill” bill to fight opioid addiction. Brase says “A Minnesota bill to tax opioids proposes taxation without representation. A government bureaucracy would determine the level of taxation, not the legislature. The state Board of Pharmacy would define a taxable unit. It could be a prescription. It could be a milligram equivalent.
“In 2016, there were 3.5 million opioid prescriptions in Minnesota, which equals 2.7 billion morphine milligram equivalents. If the tax was $1.00 per prescription, that’s $3.5 million dollars, but if the tax was 1 cent per milligram equivalent, that’s $27 million. Time for a tea party if this bill passes and a state bureaucracy gets the power to set the tax.” Baker proposes charging companies that sell opioid pain killers in Minnesota a fee starting at a penny a pill, then use the money to fund programs to prevent and treat opioid addiction. He estimates the surcharge would generate up to 20 million dollars a year.
Filed under: General Problems
I doubt it would be constitutional because they are doing it with just opiates and not other drugs that twnd to be highly abused. Better yet charge everyone who get a prescription $.05 tax per medication then use that to help with rehab efforts and prevention.
Wasn’t part of the revolutionary war because of taxation without representation? It’s happening all over this country…
Anything coming out of Minnesota is corrupted,,this is klown-dyns,,,territory, and his hands are in everything in minnesota,,obviously even the truth getting out,,mary