Wisconsin's Senate approved Gov. Jim Doyle's Healthy Wisconsin plan to provide health insurance for everyone in the state under the supervision of a 16 person authority. According to its proponents, it will:
....for the first time guarantee that all Wisconsinites get the same high quality health care that our state legislators have had for years, while being affordable for Wisconsin families.
News flash: This "affordable" health care plan, which includes "free" preventive care, will not come cheaply. Indeed, the Healthy Wisconsin scheme will cost around $15.2 billion - $3 billion more than Wisconsin currently collects in sales, personal income and corporate income taxes.
Adds ABC investigative reporter John Stossel:
....down the road [the Healthy Wisconsin plan] will cost much more than that. Even the $15 billion is based on... Pollyannaish assumptions....
As usual, most of the new taxes will be imposed on employers... taxes on business are often paid by workers, stockholders and consumers. Businesses that can't pass the taxes on to someone else will close or move out of state.
One reason premiums are so expensive ($4,462 annually for the average Wisconsin family): health insurers must comply with 29 mandates, including genetic testing and dental and chiropractic care.
Worst of all, Wisconsin will have no alternatives to this system. In Stossel's words:
Want to buy insurance from another state, like nearby Michigan, where an average policy costs less? Too bad. It's against the law to buy across state lines. Your state's Big Brother knows best.
While the Wisconsin Senate's approval of this health plan brings it closer to enactment, there is still one hurdle - the Wisconsin House, which rejected it in the past. Nevertheless, some opponents of the plan are hoping it will become law and fail in practice as an object lesson for the rest of the country. Says Stossel:
....let Wisconsin try it! Their suffering will be for the greater good....
Wisconsin can show the other 49 states what "universal" coverage is like.
I feel bad for the people in Wisconsin. They already suffer from little job creation, and the Packers aren't winning, but it's better to experiment with one state than all of America.
Hopefully, Washington state policy makers will carefully monitor what goes on in Wisconsin and learn from it before leaping deeper into the state-run health care zone. Already, Washington is plagued with too many health care mandates, a heavy burden on businesses, and not enough emphasis on individual health care choice. We could do worse, but we could also do much better.
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