Spinal cord and brain injury trust fund. Rep. Mays
Creates the spinal cord and brain injury registry and the spinal cord and brain injury research board to advise the state department of health on the registry and plans to fund spinal cord and brain injury research and grants. Creates the spinal cord and brain injury fund to be funded with additional court fees for certain motor vehicle violations and an additional motorcycle registration fee. Appropriates continually money in the fund to the state department of health.
The bill also has a $10 increase in motorcycle registrations, all of which goes to the trust fund. $500,000 annually goes from the fund to Purdue and $500,000 annually goes to IU, for the purpose of studying spinal and brain injuries.
[tags]HB1813-2007[/tags]
Why is this a function of the state government?
Sure, the intent looks good, but what body part / disease / syndrome / injury could not be the subject of such a fund?
Unless, of course, government should be responsible for everything…
Parker,
Just speculating here, but brain and spinal cord injuries may be disproportionately likely to result in permanent partial or complete impairment of the ability to work. That in turn results in more people on the Medicaid rolls.
Rep. Mays may be reasoning that funding research into repair of neurological damage in the short to medium term may save the state money in the long term. There have been some interesting developments in this area lately, even leaving aside the political firestorm over embryonic stem cells.
Branden –
I am certain there are any number of ways one can rationalize this – but you can rationalize any number of things that should not be functions of government.
For example, you could argue that government should encourage people to smoke heavily.
Why not? It will raise tax revenue, make people feel good from the nicotine, and generally kill them sooner and quicker, so that society saves on Social Security and Medicare expenses.
Bonus points – this impact will be biased toward older people, who are typically less productive and paying less in taxes, anyway. It will also let us collect any associated estate taxes that much sooner.
It’s a win-win-win-win!
OK – all snark aside, it seems to go against the concept of limited government. I don’t know if we’ll ever get government to be truly just and even-handed – trying to get it to be ‘good’ in all things as well seems like overreaching.
Parker,
You asked; I offered speculative explanations.