Weekly Pulse: “Racist” Tanning Tax and Other Absurd Objections to Health Care Reform

By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger While President Obama signed the final piece of the health care reform bill into law on Tuesday, opponents are not taking the defeat lying down. This week's prize for the most bizarre objection to health care reform goes to Glenn Beck's guest host Doc Thompson who alleged that a tax on tanning salons is racist. Andy Kroll of Mother Jones explains: Filling in for Glenn Beck on his radio show, conservative radio host Doc Thompson recently made the stunningly outrageous claim that a tax on indoor tanning salons, as included in the health care reform bill, is racist. Such a tax, Thompson claimed, discriminates against "all light-skinned Americans" because only white-skinned Americans use tanning salons. Never mind the deadly effect tanning beds and the like have on your skin and health, nor the fact that the tax would generate $2.7 billion over ten years to help pay for health care. No, that couldn't have anything to do with why the tax was included in the health care bill. Governors vs. AGs Christina Bellantoni of TPM Election Central reports that various Republican state attorneys general are clashing with their Democratic governors over plans to challenge health care reform in court. When Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox (R) joined an anti-reform lawsuit, Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) reminded everyone that "no one in the executive branch has authorized [Cox] to take this position." The lawsuits are a good way to grab media attention, but Cox and his fellow AGs may end up with egg on their faces if these challenges actually go to court. Reform and the Constitution Some anti-reform activists allege that health care reform is unconstitutional because the government doesn't have the right to force people to carry health insurance (aka the "individual mandate"). On, The Breakdown podcast, Chris Hayes of the Nation interviews Gillian Metzger a professor of constitutional law at Columbia who explains why the constitutionality of health care reform is "pretty much a no-brainer." Another Nation contributor, Aziz Huq, puts it this way: "Among constitutional scholars, the puzzle is not how the federal government can defend the new law, but why anyone thinks a constitutional challenge is even worth making." SEIU Sues Dissident Local Speaking of lawsuits, Carl Finamore of Working In These Times is covering a major court battle in California between two large health care unions. The 1.8 million-member Service Employees International Union is suing the former elected officers, staff and organizers of its third-largest national affiliate, United Healthcare Workers–West (UHW). The 26 defendants defected from SEIU to form a new union, National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), which is also being sued. The conflict started a few years ago when national SEIU decided to remove 65,000 health care workers from a UHW local without the local's consent. Finamore sees this lawsuit as a test of the principle of local self-governance: can SEIU sue a dissident local into submission? This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.