Health Care Trial Balloons Launched

It's probably never safe to relegate a legislative proposal to the "trial balloon" category. But most of what's being kicked around in Olympia appears to be setting the stage for 2009.  And there are plenty of balloons in the air (or should that be plenty of air in the balloons?). Many of the got a hearing yesterday in a Senate hearing chaired by Sen. Karen Keiser, who has advanced her own ambitious health care plan.

Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler has said that he aims to have his universal coverage plan go to the voters in 2009. His proposal, which considered on its own looks pretty ambitious, appears modest compared to the Keiser plan, patterned after a sweeping reform that made it through the Wisconsin Senate last year. Her plan receives favorable reviews in this op-ed by David Sirota in yesterday's Seattle Times. Sirota's website prominently features the New York Times's description of him as "populist rabble-rouse" with a "take-no-prisoners mind-set." So it's no surprise that he likes what he sees in the Wisconsin proposal.

In a move making health-care lobbyists quiver, Washington state Sen. Karen Keiser, chairwoman of her legislature's powerful health committee, is introducing the nation's most far-reaching universal-health-care proposal. Her legislation is the American West's version of a parallel Wisconsin initiative, and the replication suggests this model may begin building the universal-health-care system our country wants.

...Unlike the much-touted Massachusetts law forcing citizens to buy insurance from the private profiteers, the Washington and Wisconsin models pool all existing health-care expenditures and then replace the middlemen with one publicly controlled, not-for-profit system. That structure attacks problems beyond the immorality of allowing 18,000 Americans to die each year because they lack health coverage.

Sure, some of us might wonder just how that works. But betraying no skepticism, Sirota says:

Employers and employees pay a modest payroll tax in exchange for full medical benefits, with no premiums. Patients never lose coverage and pick the doctors they prefer.

Modest payroll tax? Full benefits? Really?

AWB's counterpart, the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, opposed the "Healthy Wisconsin" proposal, which would have imposed a 14.5 percent payroll tax and doubled state tax collections. Don Brunell wrote about the plan here.

The AP's Curt Woodward has a good account of the hearing and the proposal.

Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Kent, patterned her "Washington Health Partnership" after a $15 billion program proposed in the Wisconsin Legislature.

The Washington version would levy new taxes on businesses and workers, using the proceeds to extend health benefits to all Washingtonians not covered by a federal program. The payroll tax would range from 2 percent to 4 percent for workers, and from 9 percent to 12 percent for employers.

Keiser dodged questions Monday about the program's overall cost, saying more would be known after consultants are hired to study it.

Woodward notes that Republicans and conservatives expressed concern. Others did, too.

Even the state's largest teachers union, a traditional Democratic ally, asked for caution in proceeding with Keiser's plan.

Some of that reluctance, union lobbyist Randy Parr said, dates to Washington's last attempt at such a sweeping health care overhaul, in the early 1990s.

That effort ultimately failed when Washington couldn't get a waiver from federal regulations.

In her overview of the health care debates, Seattle Times editorial writer Kate Riley makes a commonsense observation.

Solving the challenges of access and affordability in health care is a monumental task requiring bipartisan effort. Remember the state's Democrat-controlled reform in the early 1990s that was promptly excised when the Republicans won control in 1994? To stick, such sweeping changes require a thorough examination and earnest, nonpartisan efforts to seek agreement.

Good suggestion.