Brunell Looks at Wisconsin Health Care

In Don's column in today's Columbian, he takes a look at the health care brouhaha in the Wisconsin Legislature. This may be the biggest political health policy battle in the nation right now.

The main event is the underlying battle between Democrats who want government to control health insurance and Republicans who push market-driven reforms. How this dust-up is settled may be the prelude to what happens in other states around the country.

And the stakes are enormous.

[The Senate Democrats'] ... $15.2 billion program would be funded through a 14.5-percent payroll tax, which would eventually rise to 17.5 percent over the next decade. Initially, employers would pay 10.5 percent of the payroll tax while workers would kick in 4 percent.

Let's put that annual $15.2 billion in context. It's $3 billion more than Wisconsin takes in each year from personal income taxes, sales taxes and corporate income taxes combined.

We've also followed this a bit here.