If Earl Jaques won't tell us about the funding of HB 392, we'll ask for ourselves

If you have been following the torturous story of determining whether the funding mechanism behind HB 392 (Single-payer health insurance in Delaware) will actually pay for itself via a 2.5% Health Security Income Tax, a graduated Health Security payroll tax, and appropriating all Federal medical funding, you will recall this statement by Representative Earl Jaques at Delaware Liberal:

DoTheMath: Your comment that somebody ought to do a rough estimate on the math and then see what they think. Rep Kowalko and I did. We had both the Sec of Finance office and the Controller General’s office check the numbers. They took into account the size of employers across the state to determine who has to pay 4% and who would pay 9%. Then they used last year’s tax numbers to determine the 2.5% factor. Then we added in the money which will be included in the pot from various federal programs,i.e. medicare, etc. Guess What? The numbers in the bill work!!

Of course, we are now in the fifth day of waiting for Representative Jaques to substantiate that assertion, and I got tired of holding my breath.

You can't FOIA the Controller General's office, since it is part of the General Assembly, but there is no such opacity provided to the Secretary of Finance. So I have filed a Freedom of Information Act request to see the results of the SecFin inquiry that we are assured was conducted:

I'll let you know what happens. The 15-day countdown starts now.

Comments

Dana Garrett said…

Good for you! If they don't respond, I'll give them hell too.

June 22, 2012 at 5:02 PM

Steven H. Newton said…

Oh, and Dana, just for irony's sake: when you grouched at me the other day to go do a FOIA if I didn't like his answer, I had just done it the night before, and must have been writing the post at the exact moment you were writing the comment.

June 22, 2012 at 5:49 PM

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