President Obama's health care reform has been the number one attacking point for Republicans across the country over the last few years. Adding his name to the list is another Republican representative who is taking his criticism of "Obamacare" to a new level.
Appearing at a town hall event in Gainesville, Florida over the weekend, Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) told a group of supporters that he was planning to co-sponsor a new "birther" bill in an attempt to get President Obama out of office and take his health care law with him.
Among his many criticism, Yoho claimed that the Affordable Care Act was racist because it included a 10 percent sales tax on tanning beds, which the congressman states targets white people unfairly.
“I had a little fun with [John] Boehner and told him about the sun tanning tax. He goes, ‘I didn’t know it was in there,’ and I said, ‘Yes, it’s a ten percent tax,’” Yoho recalled. “He goes, ‘Well, that’s not that big of a deal.’ I said, ‘It’s a racist tax.’ He goes, ‘You know what, it is.’...I had an Indian doctor in our office the other day, very dark skin, with two non-dark skin people, and I asked this to him, I said, ‘Have you ever been to a tanning booth?’ and he goes, ‘No, no need.’ So therefore it’s a racist tax and I thought I might need to get to a sun tanning booth so I can come out and say I’ve been disenfranchised because I got taxed because of the color of my skin."
The tanning tax was added to help pay for the new health care reform. The 10 percent tax on individuals receiving indoor tanning services was imposed and is expected to generate $2.7 billion over the decade.
Like many others before him, Rep. Yoho uses extremes to cater to the extremists in his own party when attacking President Obama and anything that he is attached to. To claim that the entire health care reform is "racist" because of a tanning tax is just as ridiculous as the party he is a part of.
