Let Wisconsin Experiment with Socialized Medicine

Real Clear Politics ^ | August 08, 2007 | John Stossel

[Rick_Michael]

The Wall Street Journal editorial-page editors are upset that Wisconsin's state Senate passed "Healthy Wisconsin", which will give health insurance to every person in the state....

In addition, as the Journal put it, "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."...

As usual, most of the new taxes will be imposed on employers. Progressives believe money taken from them doesn't cost anything...

The WSJ writes about a "last line of defense against" Healthy Wisconsin, but I say, let Wisconsin try it! Their suffering will be for the greater good.

That's why America needs "Healthy Wisconsin." The fall of the Soviet Union deprived us of the biggest example of how socialism works. We need laboratories of failure to demonstrate what socialism is like. All we have now is Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, the U.S. Post Office, and state motor-vehicle departments.

It's not enough. Wisconsin can show the other 49 states

[Rick_Michael]

As though we need to expand the problem....lets do it for all the states!? /SARCASM!

Oh, and by the way since Medicare, Medicaid, and SS are taking-up almost all of the budget,...what say you about getting rid of the military and all those 'unnecessary things'!?

You wanted to know what the biggest threat to our military and long-term national security...well, it's already here. You just let this issue slide for another 15 years and/or allow the dems to get office and expand upon the problem...or you educate yourself on how to solve it and you push your politician like hell. That simple!

[Crooked Constituent]

This plan is suppose to help people without health insurance like me. The problem is, I cannot afford the tax increase to pay for it. GRRRRRRR!!! I’ll be calling my state senator in the morning.

[Lancey Howard]

I agree 100% with John Stossel. Like San Fransicko is a great magnet for sodomites and perverts, let Wisconsin be a magnet for all the parasites and bums (the Democrat “base”) who want “free stuff”. I hope Wisconsin pulls tons of people away from civilized states (especially Pennsylvania!).

[Iris7]

Federal government medical care is in the bag. It will happen. This certainty does not please me.

Pretty soon, too. My guess is less than ten years. Maybe less than five.

[knarf]

So that's why milk has gone up.

[AlaskaErik]

The problem is, I cannot afford the tax increase to pay for it.

Maybe it's time to move to a free state. Lower taxes and you can once again protect yourself and your loved ones by carrying concealed.

[VRWCRick]

Wisconsin gets to carry on the Tenn Care debacle and experience utter failure. It will be very interesting to read in a year or two how the system is going broke and people and employers are fleeing the state to escape the high taxes.

So-called “universal health care” with all the competence of Ray Nagin and the school buses. Wisconsin has just consigned itself to being a financial black hole.

[jabbermog]

For any US State that is planning free healthcare : -

DON’T !!!!!!!

Our health system was designed in 1946 with the aim of looking after servicemen coming home from the War.
6 decades on and ‘healthcare’ can mean anything from a sex change operation to maternity or childcare for third World refugees who have never paid a penny torwards it. Meanwhile my 83 year old Aunt has to pay for all her medication and eye tests - because she owns her own home.
Britains annual healthcare bill is roughly £120 billion ($240 billion) and counting.
Don’t let America go down the same disastrous path.

[the invisib1e hand]

“HillaryCare” spreads like a disease. New York already has something called “Healthy New York” and it was posted on FR some time ago that it looked like a HillaryCare starter-kit. Now it’s spawining.

[the invisib1e hand]

that’s “spawning,” although, yes, it’s spawning and whining at the same time.

[Thermalseeker]

This plan is suppose to help people without health insurance like me.

Tennessee tried this several years ago. It was called "TennCare" and it nearly bankrupted the state. The fraud was rampant. Folks from neighboring states fraudulently applied for coverage and the state granted it. There was something on the order of 160,000 "participants" that should not have been eligible for coverage.

The bottom line is, gubmint has no business providing health care coverage. Leave it to the free market, or suffer the consequences!

[knuthom]

If Wisconsin does this, they should be prepared to pay for a lot of Chicago area patients. They will establish phony Wisconsin addresses with friends or relatives in southern Wisconsin. That used to be the case when WI had a better welfare system than IL.

[chrisser]

Here’s the fun part:

If it succeeds in Wisconsin (it won’t but humor me), then “progressives” will point to that state as an example of why we need healthcare run by the feds.

When it fails in Wisconsin, the failure will be blamed on people from other states overwhelming the system, something that would be solved if healthcare were run by the feds.

No matter what happens, they will use the result to push for healthcare at the federal level, and just like Social Security, by the time everyone realizes what a disaster it is, enough people will be sucking at that teet, or don’t remember what the alternative was like, that it can never be undone.

[rabidralph]

Nooooo, don’t say that. The problem with Wisconsin is Milwaukee and Madison. All the other outlying areas have normal people living there.

[wideminded]

Meanwhile my 83 year old Aunt has to pay for all her medication and eye tests - because she owns her own home.

Yes, but how much do those medications and tests cost? I'll wager that it would cost a lot more, especially for the medications, in the US.

Britains annual healthcare bill is roughly £120 billion ($240 billion) and counting.

The US spends 2 1/2 times as much per capita on health care as Britain, so you must be doing something right.

[MrB]

You have hit upon the very reason that the left wants NATIONAL socialist healthcare, instead of the actual Constitutional way of doing it at the state level.

The founders knew that the individual states would be the laboratories for various experiments, such as this. And, if it succeeded, that state would gain a huge boon that would be copied by the other states to the benefit of all.

However, if it was a huge loser like socialist healthcare will be, no one else will copy it, and that state would likely lose its productive citizens.

When socialist healthcare is nationalized, there’s no “escaping” it.

[jabbermog]

I’m not too sure about the exact cost ; its not an arm and a leg, no.
The point I was trying to make about free healthcare is that it benefits those who should not be entitled to it.

Sorry I was going to go into it further but I have to go out on a job. Speak to you laters.
Again my apologies.

[The Great RJ]

Wisconsin’s greatest export will no long be cheese but businesses and disgruntled tax payers.

[KS Flyover]

Bump!

[Lancey Howard]

You have hit upon the very reason that the left wants NATIONAL socialist healthcare, instead of the actual Constitutional way of doing it at the state level.

Sure, that's why one of the biggest accomplishments of the GOP congress (remember that?) in the mid-'90s was DE-nationalizing welfare to a large extent by allowing the states to "experiment" with welfare reform however they chose (given certain objectives which they were charged with meeting within a certain time).