Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com

Published - Saturday, July 14, 2007

Health care a key area of dispute in state budget battle

By REID MAGNEY / La Crosse Tribune

When legislative leaders sit down with Gov. Jim Doyle in coming weeks to find a compromise on the state budget, one of the biggest issues will be health care.

Senate Democrats passed a budget that includes a sweeping overhaul of the state’s entire health care system, which would provide universal coverage through a payroll tax.

Assembly Republicans’ budget goes the other way, relying on eliminating taxes on Health Savings Accounts to spur consumers to make better health care decisions and control costs.

Doyle’s budget doesn’t go nearly as far as the Senate’s on health care, and Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch said Friday he’s closer to Doyle, a Democrat, on health care than the Senate Democrats.

State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, said the Democrats’ plan, called Healthy Wisconsin, would use “managed competition,” and work like the insurance state employees receive. Each person could choose from among several health plans, which would be run by local health care providers. Premiums would come from the payroll taxes, 10.5 percent on employers and 4 percent on workers.

Vinehout said the state’s health consumers would save money because the state would cut waste, lower drug costs through bulk purchasing, reward healthy lifestyles and preventive care, and reward providers who deliver the most efficient and best care.

Huebsch agrees the state is “at a crossroads” on health care. “Kathleen and others are excited about the prospect that Wisconsin could lead the nation in giving it all to government,” he said. “Nothing scares me more. It just decimates health care as we see it today.”

“The driving force in health care and the reason costs go up is the government,” he said. “With programs like Medical Assistance and Badgercare and Seniorcare, we over-promise and under-provide for almost every program, so the providers are forced to shift that cost to the rest of us.”

Huebsch called the tax to pay for the Democrats’ plan is “the largest tax increase in American history. What Kathleen and others will say is we’re just taking the money that’s already being spent and sending it to government. It’s not exactly the way it will work.”

He predicted government intervention in health care would reduce service and quality.

Vinehout said Huebsch’s reliance on Health Savings Accounts won’t do nearly enough to control costs because 20 percent of people are responsible for 80 percent of health care costs.

“We have to set ideology aside,” Vinehout said. “We have two entrenched camps. There’s the competition/free market model, and there’s the regulation model. Neither one works. We tried regulation in the 1970s. We’ve tried competition since then. It hasn’t worked.”

Vinehout said the Democratic plan “sets aside both ideologies and drives down the middle. We need to take the best of both ideologies and marry them together to find a solution we can all live with.”

“We know this works because we’ve done it with federal and state employees,” she said.

Reid Magney can be reached at (608) 791-8211 or rmagney@lacrossetribune.com.