By Patrick Fitzgerald
WisBusiness.com
Business leaders were largely skeptical of the “Healthy Wisconsin” care plan at today’s MMAC Blueprint Briefing in Milwaukee, which featured a panel debate over the controversial health care plan.
As it stands, “Healthy Wisconsin” aims to provide health care coverage to state residents and employees, including coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment. Proponents of the plan say it will be funded by assessments on employers, employees, the self-employed, and individuals without an earned income who meet specific residency and employment requirements.
Stepping up to the plate for the Democrat-sponsored plan were State Rep. Jon Richards (D-Milwaukee), and former State Budget Director David Riemer, who maintained that the plan would remain on par with the state’s high-quality health care system.
Riemer emphasized that “Healthy Wisconsin” is extraordinarily consumer driven in that “individuals get a choice every year among multiple health care plans.
“They could join the lower cost plans that are competing in an intensely competitive private market, or if they wanted another choice, they could pay extra for the higher cost plans,” Riemer said. “Sounds a lot like a free market, doesn’t it?”
“And that’s exactly what this is.”
Riemer also cited a study by the Lewin Group in which they found businesses will pay $1,500 less per year per worker, and that the average insurance-providing employer will pay between 15 and 50 percent less in annual rates, projecting to save state businesses almost $700 million in its inaugural year.
“This is not a government run program,” said Riemer. “Yet the government sets the playing field for this.”
State Rep. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa), a staunch opponent of the plan, called the plan nothing short of government run health care.
“It is a top-down government controlled takeover of the funding and financing of our health care,” Vukmir said. “There will be no mechanism for real competition.”
“Healthy Wisconsin eyes a model of managed competition, and I have a hard time even putting those two words together.”
Vukmir said the plan would create a climate carefully managed and monitored by the Healthy Wisconsin authority, taking the role of private insurance companies and leaving two types of plans: managed care or fee-for-service.
“And the other choice that everyone will have is that they may choose to move to one of the 49 other states to receive health care,” Vukmir said.
Vukmir further ripped into the plan by saying it leaves employers with no wiggle room during times of financial instability.
“If your business is facing a serious competitive challenge and your health care costs are tied to your worker’s employment, under Healthy Wisconsin you can’t go back in and re-bid your health insurance,” Vukmir said. “Your only option is to reduce the number of hours and eliminate the jobs.”
Jon Rauser, president of The Rauser Agency and the other panelist opposed to the plan, called Wisconsin’s health care dilemmas a “cost crisis, not an insurance crisis.”
“We don’t need to send more money to Madison and to the provider community,” said Rauser. “It is an already bloated system with an enormous amount of waste.”
During the audience question and answer session that followed the panel debate, Riemer was asked if he thought that it is a legitimate concern that Wisconsin could become a welfare magnet.
“I don’t think it will be a significant problem,” Riemer replied, eliciting laughs from several members of the audience. “It could be a possibility, but I don’t think its going to be a real problem.”
Riemer felt “Healthy Wisconsin” would be added incentive for insurance-weary businesses to relocate within Wisconsin borders.
“Employers in other states that are providing health insurance are finding it very costly to do so, and will find Wisconsin a very attractive place to be,” Riemer said. “They’re spending a lot of money on out-of-control health care costs, and they can move to Wisconsin and spend a lot less.”
Despite Riemer’s optimistic picture for “Healthy Wisconsin,” Vukmir said the only way the plan will control health care costs is through managing competition.
“This plan doesn’t reform, all it does is change who pays for our current health care,” said Vukmir, calling the plan a re-allocation of current health care dollars.
“I often think Adam Smith might be turning over in his grave right now.”
–Listen to audio of the debate:
*Richards and Riemer on why “Healthy Wisconsin” works: http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/DW_C0074.wav
*Vukmir on why “Healthy Wisconsin” will not work: http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/Vukmir.wav
*Rauser on why “Healthy Wisconsin” will not work: http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/Rauser.wav
*Question & answer session following the debate: http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/Q_and_A.wav
