By Kathy

March 30, 2010 4:04 PM | Link to this

That is about the most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard. Besides, I know dark skinned people — black people — who go to tanning beds too. They tend to tan much easier but believe it or not some go. I don’t know why you would submit yourself to such a cancer causing thing. But why do people continue to smoke?

By Because We Can

March 30, 2010 4:31 PM | Link to this

Kathy; BECAUSE THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY…. or at least, it USED to be.

By intellectuallyindependent

March 30, 2010 4:32 PM | Link to this

no wonder i see cops pulling people over as they leave L.A. tan

By NCF

March 30, 2010 4:39 PM | Link to this

Not sure why John Boehner is being invoked here. Is he notorious for using a tanning bed? BTW, Amelia, Ebert is a “movie critic”, not a “movie credit”. You might want to fix that.

By JDG

March 30, 2010 4:47 PM | Link to this

To NCF, Are yiu kidding? Boehner’s tanning is a huge joke! He Spends all his time on photo ops and in a tanning bed!

By In the know

March 30, 2010 4:50 PM | Link to this

The big secret is that Obama isn’t really bi-racial: he too uses a tanning bed to get that glow!

By John

March 30, 2010 5:05 PM | Link to this

@Because We Can. I don’t remember hearing tanning beds and cigarettes were being banned. So it STILL IS a FREE country.

By Jack

March 30, 2010 5:44 PM | Link to this

STFU Because we can! Go back to your hole or get the hell out of this country!

By Bozo

March 30, 2010 5:44 PM | Link to this

just another example of the stupidity in the white house. go concentrate on the huge deficit you have been building and all the other promises that you said you were going to do.

By T'

March 30, 2010 5:45 PM | Link to this

This is to prevent one of the most deadly diseases in the world, cancer, it has nothing to do with the color of ones skin, it has everything to do with saving lives!!!

By diehardblue

March 30, 2010 5:45 PM | Link to this

One way to get rid of the tan tax and all the other taxes Pelosi, Reid and the “Big O” passed this session of Congress is to get rid of all the freeloaders who get checks for doing nothing, get medicaid when they never paid into anything and disability when they are are in their twenties because some doctor gave them a bad back solution and yet they are out working each day. Instead though they just put million more freeloaders on the government payroll by giving health care to a group of peopl who don’t work, won’t work and never will work.

By Skip

March 30, 2010 5:51 PM | Link to this

If you think the “tax on tanning beds” is foul….. How about the elite… in a “last minute fix” to the Health Care Bill, Senator “I’m better than you” Reid added a “fix” that exempts leadership in congress, (yes..that Rep/Speaker Pelosi, and Sen Reid), the President and vice President, Cabinet members, and most Czars from the Health Care Bill, allowing them to remain with the plush FEHBP!! If that isn’t elitist! RECALL…RECALL…RECALL is what this should be. I thought President Barracks Obabble said we were ALL in this together.

By kat

March 30, 2010 5:51 PM | Link to this

It’s about saving lives AND saving money. People risk their lives to look tan and slim BUT they also increase healthcare costs when they end up with skin cancer.

By justthinkpeople!

March 30, 2010 5:51 PM | Link to this

I’m sick of the right lumping everyone that doesn’t have insurance into one big freeloading group. Some of the hardest working people in America works jobs that don’t provide health insurance. It’s unfair to claim everyone without is a lazy freeloading punk.

By Follow the money

March 30, 2010 5:52 PM | Link to this

A World Health Organization study of 100,000 women showed that the chances of getting skin cancer if you don’t tan is less than 1 percent. If you do tan, the chance is … less than 1 percent. The only increase of skin cancer was shown in so-called “Skin Type 1” individuals, who are not permitted to tan in Ohio tanning salons anyway. So why are dermatologists fighting tanning salons? Because THEY OFFER TANNING SERVICES. Except instead of charging $8 or $10 per session, they charge $80 or $100 per session to you and/or your insurance company. Follow the money.

By Crazy Harry

March 30, 2010 5:54 PM | Link to this

The tax code was not contrived to control peoples’ behavior. Like fattening food? cigarretes? tanning beds? ? Then you should be free to do so and suffer the consequences. Instead of worrying about what causes cancer in me, keep your damn fingers out of my wallet!

By kaimi

March 30, 2010 5:55 PM | Link to this

“T” really? Saving lives? Is that really what you believe a 10% tax on tanning is for/ Have you drank the kool aid that much? Or could it be to pay for this HUGE Obamacare take over of our lives. When did it become governments job to control our lives? Oh wait, they aren’t, they don’t care, they just needed to find one more person to tax so that they can pay for thie insanely outrageous debt they are creating.

By Herb

March 30, 2010 5:56 PM | Link to this

diehardblue: I take it you personally know who these freeloaders are?

By Crazy Harry again

March 30, 2010 5:56 PM | Link to this

Oh, and to the dip that writes this tripe, how about you listen to the rest of what Doc was saying about the control the government is seizing un-Constitutionally and under the guise of public health? Didn’t you overhear that part?

By J

March 30, 2010 6:15 PM | Link to this

You all crack me up. Some act as if this law is the beginning of the end for our healthcare system, and others act like it’s the big fix. You’re both wrong. The system’s messed up, and the fix is a payoff to Pharma and the insurance industry. On one hand, the uninsured is a growing percentage of the population and their cost of purely catastrophic care is transferred to those with insurance, but that influx of people into the insurance system can’t be added for free. Don’t act as if spending to save is a new concept - it’s a common business prectice to buy a new machine to make the process more efficient, saving money by spending it. So, it’s pay higher premiums or pay higher taxes, or both (which is what doing nothing gets you). Don’t start on states’ rights, either. The states are largely impotent and have left the system to rot. The government plan isn’t an expansion into an occupied space, it’s an expansion into a vacuum. Want to change it? Stop whining about this and start pushing your state to do something. Start organizing groups to cut the plan off ahead of the issue. Stop believing fictions about how well our markets function because it’s not functioning at all. And lastly, quit blaming the puppets for a bad show, blame the puppeteers.

By Prez O

March 30, 2010 6:15 PM | Link to this

HAHAHA! awww you buncha little babies cryin in your beer! boohooo.lollol hey we voted, we won! see if you can do something in november and stop your cryin like a bunch of little beyotches!! oh wait your all OBAMAS little beyotches!!!!! HARHAR!!

By J

March 30, 2010 6:16 PM | Link to this

You all crack me up. Some act as if this law is the beginning of the end for our healthcare system, and others act like it’s the big fix. You’re both wrong. The system’s messed up, and the fix is a payoff to Pharma and the insurance industry. On one hand, the uninsured is a growing percentage of the population and their cost of purely catastrophic care is transferred to those with insurance, but that influx of people into the insurance system can’t be added for free. Don’t act as if spending to save is a new concept - it’s a common business prectice to buy a new machine to make the process more efficient, saving money by spending it. So, it’s pay higher premiums or pay higher taxes, or both (which is what doing nothing gets you). Don’t start on states’ rights, either. The states are largely impotent and have left the system to rot. The government plan isn’t an expansion into an occupied space, it’s an expansion into a vacuum. Want to change it? Stop whining about this and start pushing your state to do something. Start organizing groups to cut the plan off ahead of the issue. Stop believing fictions about how well our markets function because it’s not functioning at all. And lastly, quit blaming the puppets for a bad show, blame the puppeteers.

By Blaze

March 30, 2010 6:21 PM | Link to this

The Dummycrats just love sucking the government teet. I imagine Obamas the Man is one of those brain dead Democrat sponges that can’t wait to get free medical care so he can keep smoking crack!!

By mim

March 30, 2010 6:28 PM | Link to this

There should be a beach tax—higher rate for Florida, of course. And to you pool owners, come on…30 cents per minute (after the first ten). Then, we need to tax anyone caught in the sun without a hat, a government-issued hat. (If we’re gonna make citizens buy insurance, they shouldn’t protest the idea of having to buy government-issued hats).

By blue_devil

March 30, 2010 6:35 PM | Link to this

I cant believe a white man would go around saying that he knows the pain of racism on something about tanning beds!! How is this racist? So there is a tax on tanning beds to try and keep people away from doing so and promote good health. If you have an issue with it get out in the sun for once! But again, how does this relate to racism? I doubt youve ever experienced racism at all so shut the hell up about it. remember, we have to fix what the last president jacked up.

By naomi

March 30, 2010 6:35 PM | Link to this

we are all Obama’s slaves now

By trevor

March 30, 2010 6:39 PM | Link to this

this isn’t racist per se, but it is a lifestyle tax. Just like taxes on cigarettes, alcohol, and firearms, a tax on tanning beds is the government trying to control your behavior. Why not just ban the substances if they cause harm? Well then the government wouldn’t get their share. So rather than get rid of tanning completely and create a black market (like one’s that exist for cocaine, heroin, pot, and other schedule narcotics) they figure they might as well just tax us instead. Racist, maybe. Lifestyle tax, definitely. However, if the government didn’t require insurance companies to cover all like of people, then maybe a tanning tax wouldn’t be necessary. If american’s could purchase health insurance across state lines and insurance companies were allowed to compete, then they could just charge more for people that tanned, or other them different types of health insurance based on their behavior, just as heavy drinkers and smokers pay higher premiums.

By Isaac

March 30, 2010 6:44 PM | Link to this

I’d say that it’s pretty logical to tax things like tanning beds, cigarettes and fast food. Using any of those things in excess is almost certain to lead to increased medical treatment, the cost of which in our current system is going to be passed on to everyone in the form of higher insurance premiums. Does anyone have any doubt that everyone would pay less in health insurance if it weren’t for people harming themselves through obesity, smoking or something like tanning? Since you can’t increase the premium of someone who tans (since they could just lie and say they didn’t), why’s it wrong to tax it? And who cares if it costs more to go to a tanning bed? You were already wasting your money, why complain about having to waste a little more? Otherwise, there’s this thing called the sun, it’s free, use it.

By Gene S.

March 30, 2010 6:48 PM | Link to this

Roger Ebert is one to talk about other people’s looks. If Ebert could shut his piehole he wouldn’t be such a fat pig.

By Isaac

March 30, 2010 6:54 PM | Link to this

Trevor, since most people get health insurance through their jobs, it’s a flat fee. I am paying the same amount of money towards health insurance as the 400 lb smoker who sits next to me. Not to mention that it would be pretty easy to lie to your insurance company about smoking or drinking, much less tanning in a tanning bed.

By J

March 30, 2010 8:06 PM | Link to this

Trevor: I’ll say this up front; there is no reason why the ideas of competing across state lines and portability shouldn’t be in this law, but don’t kid yourself, they won’t do hardly a thing by themselves because the GOP is as afraid to take on the anti-trust exemption as the Dems are, leaving no market to really reform with those measures. Add to that the GOP’s insistence that the states regulate, and those measure just might well have a negative effect. It’d be like building a car to fit 50 different standards. Most insurance companies wouldn’t (and don’t for this reason) sell across state lines for the added overhead vs minimal gain. Portability options would be just like COBRA is now. Moving into a new state means taking on the provider networks and contracts already established by other companies. While it all sounds so sensible, it’s just a talking point.

By BillDanger

March 30, 2010 10:42 PM | Link to this

This is a SIN TAX, nothing more. It’s knee jerk reactions from the likes of DOC & Glenn that make it hard for sensible conservatives to gain credibility. We should ridicule and ostracize these comments and the people that make them.

By WTF

March 31, 2010 6:03 AM | Link to this

It was a joke! Like all of you who got upset - A JOKE!

By Raoul

March 31, 2010 7:47 AM | Link to this

For all those supporting this tax on tanning salons as a means to reduce health care costs, tell me why we should not tax abortions? Talk about life threatening…..! WTF, you got it right; this whole thing was a joke.

By Really... WTF

March 31, 2010 9:22 AM | Link to this

I thought everything was going to be taxed now. From tanning beds to high school basketball tickets to church bingo cards. That’s how socialists do it, nothing is immune.

By trey

March 31, 2010 10:30 AM | Link to this

@Jack, you seem like an upset little man that feels that everyone should do things your way or take the highway… why dont YOU get out of this country!

By phuck

April 1, 2010 12:59 PM | Link to this

Jack: “If you dun like ‘Merica, then git the hell out.” Isn’t this akin to taxing fast food, putting the burden on fat people?

By J

April 1, 2010 6:06 PM | Link to this

Ponder this, all: IF it’s fine to incentivize behavior via the tax code (make it more attractive to buy more, use this investment style, use more credit), and not make some behaviors unattractive? Simply put, some behaviors are more likely to incur high health costs than others. When that behavior results in bad behavior, the person suffers the physical consequences, which is plenty, AND financial ones. And what they don’t face, we all face, because every cost not straight out of the patient’s pocket is passed on to you. So, as for keeping our fingers out of crazy’s wallet, who the heck do you think is stealing from you?

By Pet

April 25, 2011 4:48 AM | Link to this

Well, this is quite interesting indeed. Would love to read a little more of this. Nice post. Thanks for the heads-up.