Government Driving up Health Care Costs in Washington State?

[roster]

Bottled-water tax hurts health care

Gov. Gregoire’s tax on bottled water would affect every person who has sleep apnea or other ailments that call for distilled water for their machines at night.

I have a trach tube in my neck. I have to have a machine put moisture in my lungs every night to live.

I will have to pay more for the tax, at 1 cent an ounce, than I do for the water itself. Wal-Mart distilled water is about $1 a gallon. Taxing 1 cent on every ounce is $1.28 extra. I will be paying $92.16 more for my health care a year for the tax alone on distilled bottled water.

People who have well water unfit to drink because of the bad minerals need bottled water, too, for their health.

No, we don’t need a tax on water that comes in a bottle. I thought we were trying to cut health-care expense down, not up.

Barbara Ann Bell
Snohomish
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/201003 ... /703169981

Barbara Ann did the math.

[BlackSpinner]

She should buy a distiller.

It costs me more to get distilled water plus I have to haul it home on the bus - cry me a river. Pay your taxes and be glad to have services.

[jules]

I had just read the subject of this, googled it, and checked my still. Is tap water drinkable here? well maybe but I don't drink it.

Yes a distiller is the way to go. I can brew a gallon for about 30 cents electric use and that is heat in the house which is nice in the winter. I don't accumulate a lot of extra plastic bottles this way either.

Let's raise the tax on cigarettes a few more dollars a pack instead and stop allowing those American Indian run q-stores to sell the lower priced cigarettes to non tribal members.

[Jay K]

As a transplanted Californian who now lives in Washington, may I suggest one solution would be to move to California and pay the state income taxes there in lieu of the proposed distilled water tax in Washington. But on a more serious (and less sarcastic note) my first reaction also was to purchase a distiller, which is a reasonable thing to do even without the proposed new tax.

[jules]

Well this is getting closer to reality - from what I could get out of news articles yesterday, bottled water will be taxed at same rate as mass produced beer I gather - 50 cents/gallon. Soda will be taxed at 2 cents a 12 oz can - lower rate.

For prescribed water or where you don't have potable water you can get a refund of the tax - not sure what the details will be but I can just see going and paying a $30 copay to get the sleep doc to write the rx for the distilled water and save yourself say $11.5 in taxes. My crude math (which sucks of course): I use 8 oz a night so a gallon would last 16 nights. I would then use 23 gallons a year.

[Babette]

Brita Pitcher.

Suits me just fine.
B.

[Gilley]

She should buy a distiller.

It costs me more to get distilled water plus I have to haul it home on the bus - cry me a river. Pay your taxes and be glad to have services.

WOW! I didn't realize they had Democrats in Canada also....

[DreamStalker]

Water is so way under-valued in the US and most people have no idea where it comes from other than a tap at the end of a pipe. People of the wealthy western world take clean water for granted. They have no idea how the lack of fresh clean drinking water affects most of the world's population.

The main reason that there is only about 3 days difference between civilization and total anarchy is because we cannot go without clean drinking water for more than about 3 days.

The OP has a nack for making divisive political mountains out of ant hills. He is the first to start crying because he must pay for a public service and I'm sure he would be the first to start crying if a public service was taken from him. He should go live for a year in Africa, or India, or Iraq, or even with our neighbors to the south in Mexico and maybe he would have better sense.

[OCSleeper]

Comrade Obama recommends the standard Russian communal drinking glass to solve our (water) problem.
It's not clean...and it's not distilled, but hey...it's "free" **

** Added FEE for H2O, taxes not included.