Over the weekend, the state media scrambled around to try to piece together details of the universal health plan being offered by Wisconsin Senate Democrats in the state budget. This article from the Wisconsin State Journal on Sunday caught my eye as being particularly interesting.
While there are parts of the article that I would accuse of being too favorable to the universal health care plan (like, the first six paragraphs, for instance), I do actually have some sympathy for how difficult it is to cover your typical \”liberal versus conservative\” types of topics. As a general rule, people who benefit from new government programs are pretty easy to track down. On the other hand, the people who pay for such a program, and therefore would be in strident opposition, are the taxpayers – who are spread out and largely disinterested.
For instance, let\’s say the Senate was proposing a new $2 million program to benefit the Wisconsin Society of People with No Lips. When the bill is up on the floor, all the State Journal has to do is call someone with no lips to tell them (as best as they can, at least) how great the bill is. The downside, of course, to passing the bill is that you couldn\’t tell if it really made the lipless people all that happy – since they\’d be smiling anyway. Although they wouldn\’t look quite as surprised as the Wisconsin Society of People With No Eyelids when their bill passed.
On the other hand, it would be harder to track down people who are anti-lipless and think the free market could better serve their needs. First, the cost of the program would be minimal when spread throughout all taxpayers, so nobody really gets all that upset. The problem is, when you stack program upon program upon program like that – each with a supposed \”minimal\” effect on taxpayers – you end up as the 8th highest taxed state in the nation, as Wisconsin is now.
Furthermore, plans to \”help\” specific groups are much easier to explain to people than market forces. Conservatives argue that on health care, we\’re not really operating in a free market with all of the state mandates on health plans and other government regulations. If doctors and health plans had transparency in pricing, had to compete for patients, and had the flexibility to offer more specialized care, then health care costs would come down. But try to explain this to someone who thinks their health care bills are too high, and you\’ll get a glazed stare.
So reporters find someone who wants free health care (look to your left, then to your right – there\’s a 90% chance both of those people fit the bill). Then, as a counterpoint, they need someone who understands market economics. I imagine the exchange goes something like this:
Q:Â \”Do you want free health care?\”
A: \”Yes!\”
Q:Â \”Do you want your employer to provide you with a tax-free health savings account, which would allow you to choose your health care services, which would make health care more subject to the forces of market competition, which would eventually hold down the price of going to the doctor?\”
A:Â \”Can I have a sandwich?\”
The immediate constituency for government funds will always be more politically active than any loose arrangement of taxpayers who may dislike paying high taxes. Sure, there are business groups that oppose higher taxes, but at a high-scale public hearing, those groups are going to be outnumbered 10 to 1.
In the case of this health care plan, the people who want free health care are easy to find. The 8,100 minimum wage workers who are expected to lose their jobs (according to the Lewin Actuarial Analysis) are harder to track down, since none of them know if they\’d be the ones on the chopping block – they\’ll only know after it is too late. The 53% of Wisconsin residents who are going to end up paying more for health care than they do now are probably equally as difficult to find – because everything is up in the air at this point.
In the end, it may end up that all this health care plan accomplished was to give Democrats a bargaining chip in the budget process. There\’s very little chance that it will pass, and its hurried introduction and sham public hearing are evidence that it\’s not a serious proposal. In that case, Senate Democrats may have ended up giving false hope to their people who really need cheaper health care. And that would be a cruel irony.
June 27, 2007 at 7:04 am
Christian you hit the mail on the head. Free health care sounds great to all those who don’t have health insurance or are underinsured. And the appeal of “government” doing all the thinking and the paperwork is just to great to resist. Furthermore let the rich man pay for it, he has money to burn anyway. Sadly there is always a liberal Democrat there these days to promise a “free lunch” to anyone willing to vote for him or her. Of course they never tell the other side of the story. They never mention the fact the “rich mans” company has to compete for survival. They never mention that the company he owns may be forced to shut down or move to another state. They never mention the state of Wisconsin must compete with 49 other states for jobs and investment.
June 27, 2007 at 10:03 am
Russ, “They” fail to mention that when the rich man provides insurance an employee cannot shop around for a better coverage and or pricing in the free market and if it’s unaffordable the employee with children has Badger Care. They fail to mention that the rich man is already closing shop because an even richer man (insurance company) is eroding profit margins. Small business pay larger premiums than larger corporations (who is getting a free lunch?)
What is also not mentioned is that “they” ignore the fact that the rich man’s company threatens the state with relocation in order to receive tax incentives to stay. “They” fail to acknowledge that state universal health care is a competitive tool of attraction paid by all.
They also ignore the fact that we have public transportation, public education, public first responders, the list is long. It is ironic that health care is not. But then the richer man would no longer profit from someone’s misfortune.
This is not a conservative versus liberal issue. See website nchc.org for some compelling statistics regarding the health of our current system. Be sure to see the movie SICKO…
June 27, 2007 at 10:38 am
Yes, by all means – see SICKO for all of the facts and public policy analysis.
The title sums up whats inside Moore’s mind.
June 27, 2007 at 12:20 pm
NCHC.org will provide the facts and public policy analysis.
Michael Moore via SICKO is just providing a visual of the same policy. Interestingly enough, this movie is about the insured.
Why is there no outrage that our taxes continue to rise as we struggle to provide our public servants better insurance coverage and lower premiums than the average citizen receives?
June 28, 2007 at 8:26 am
When I looked to my left I saw Jeff Wood out my window. Not too sure that he was thinking of free health care.
January 3, 2008 at 7:47 pm
They fail to mention that the rich man is already closing shop because an even richer man (insurance company) is eroding profit margins. Small business pay larger premiums than larger corporations (who is getting a free lunch?)
January 3, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Yes, by all means – see SICKO for all of the facts and public policy analysis.
The title sums up whats inside Moore’s mind.
April 23, 2009 at 2:40 am
Hello…
I looked to my left I saw Jeff Wood out my window. Not too sure that he was thinking of free health care.