Wisconsin Democrats Commies to pass single-payer health care?
I missed this debate on my visit to DDR-West. I must have been too busy making music or otherwise having a productive life. But apparently the Republican House is the only thing keeping Wisconsin from providing quality health care to every citizen committing economic suicide:
Democrats who run the Wisconsin Senate have dropped the Washington pretense of incremental health-care reform and moved directly to passing a plan to insure every resident under the age of 65 in the state. And, wow, is "free" health care expensive. The plan would cost an estimated $15.2 billion, or $3 billion more than the state currently collects in all income, sales and corporate income taxes. It represents an average of $510 a month in higher taxes for every Wisconsin worker.Employees and businesses would pay for the plan by sharing the cost of a new 14.5% employment tax on wages. Wisconsin businesses would have to compete with out-of-state businesses and foreign rivals while shouldering a 29.8% combined federal-state payroll tax, nearly double the 15.3% payroll tax paid by non-Wisconsin firms for Social Security and Medicare combined.
This employment tax is on top of the $1 billion grab bag of other levies that Democratic Governor Jim Doyle proposed and the tax-happy Senate has also approved, including a $1.25 a pack increase in the cigarette tax, a 10% hike in the corporate tax, and new fees on cars, trucks, hospitals, real estate transactions, oil companies and dry cleaners. In all, the tax burden in the Badger State could rise to 20% of family income, which is slightly more than the average federal tax burden...As if that's not enough, the health plan includes a tax escalator clause allowing an additional 1.5 percentage point payroll tax to finance higher outlays in the future. This could bring the payroll tax to 16%. One reason to expect costs to soar is that the state may become a mecca for the unemployed, uninsured and sick from all over North America. The legislation doesn't require that you have a job in Wisconsin to qualify, merely that you live in the state for at least 12 months. Cheesehead nation could expect to attract health-care free-riders while losing productive workers who leave for less-taxing climes.
Wasn't John Galt's last known employer in Wisconsin, or somewhere near there?
I suppose Mano Singham is shopping for his cheesehead hat even as I type this.
UPDATE 8/9: John Stossel encourages Wisconsin to go for it, so we can see socialism in practice, and adds this data point:
Does it never occur to the progressives that the legislature's intrusion into private contracts is one reason health care and health insurance are expensive now? The average annual health-insurance premium for a family in Wisconsin is $4,462 partly because Wisconsin imposes 29 mandates on health insurers: Every policy must cover chiropractors, dentists, genetic testing, etc. Think chiropractors are quacks? Too bad. You still must pay them to treat people in your state.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.
Comments
Posted by: Atlanta Chiropractor
Posted on: January 31, 2008 05:28 PM
Just because states are coming up with solutions to our inadequate health care in the US, does not make them commies.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: February 1, 2008 02:44 PM
"From each according to ability, to each according to need." Sorry, if they take money out of my pocket to pay for somebody else's medical care, they're commies philosophically. And if communist in medical care, why not communist in labor or communist in food?
And the only thing broken in US med care is Big Pharma's use of the US governments licensing and regulation power to drive out competition to their expensive nostrums.
Posted by: john Mclaughlin Williams
Posted on: February 2, 2008 03:26 AM
Hello Jeff,
I was unable to leave a comment on the appropriate post. This is about the new Flagello/Rosner orchestral Masses.
Thank you very much for calling attention to our new recording, and I appreciate your thoughtful comments about it. Rosner is truly an American original, and his symphony moved me greatly. You may be interested to know that the recording's producer, Walter Simmons, had been long planning this particular mating of repertoire, his having known both works intimately for some time and realizing that they would be perfect discmates. Reasonable people can disagree, but I find Flagello's work to be uncompromisingly beautiful and well balanced, being so romantic while retaining a perfect amount of existential angst. Literally, the Agnus Dei brought me to tears, though I can understand that its idiom may not be to everyone's taste. For a prime example of the mature composer, I strongly recommend that you and your readers audition Flagello's Symphony No.1.
Email is above, feel free to holla.