Wisconsin Has The Model
Via Andante of Collective Sigh in comments, go and read Adam Thompson’s piece on the Healthy Wisconsin plan just passed by the state Senate.
“Tastes great and less filling,” as in everyone’s covered and the government and businesses save money as compared to the current system. This is what a “single payer system” can do for all of us. Also note that it is a “fee-for-services” system, i.e. you pick your own doctor, and you and your doctor decide what care you need.
Now all we need is a “12-Step Program” to help Congress overcome its addiction to insurance company and Big Pharma campaign contributions. We have to have 61 “sober” Senators to get anything meaningful done, and that will not be easy.
7 comments
If they could only begin by turning their lives over to a higher power…
One of the ways of introducing them to a higher power would be a recorded vote on HR 676 before the 2008 election. Let them explain their choice to their constituents.
We have to have 61 “sober” Senators to get anything meaningful done, and that will not be easy.
Ha! Sober in more ways than just kicking the habit of insurance and Big Pharma. They certainly need that 12 step program. I guess they could work one thing at a time.
plus, they don’t shoot cats there.
the wisconsin plan looks great, but now that i see that tne report is from the lewin group, i want to look more closely at it. i’m still working my way through their health benefits simulation model, and i still have some questions about their comparison of 10 different health care proposals [you can scroll down to p10 for a summary chart].
i dunno, i’m thinking sober isn’t the way to go, and that we should spike the 61’s kool-aid with some lsd and then call for a vote. i suppose there’s a danger that drugging them to get our way would make it unconstitutional or something, though.
Unconstitutional, hipparchia? I doubt it: “consistent with ancient tradition” is more like it. Mark Twain remarked that “Whiskey is carried into committee rooms in demijohns and carried out in demagogues.” If laws made by members under the influence of recreational drugs were unconstitutional, we probably would have no laws at all.
The guy in charge of Medicare and Medicaid makes slightly more the $150K/year, while the CEO of the largest private health insurance corporation make about $124M. Tell me again about private industry efficiency.
The Wisconsin plan is a model and an important first step, but we have to get off the dime and do something. Having over 40 million people with no medical coverage is a recipe for a public health disaster.
Hospitals and doctors should be backing this as they will no longer have to hire collection agencies or go to court to recover from uninsured people. Additional savings will be realized by smaller business offices as a result of simpler billing procedures.
Addictions…
Addictions…