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Cheese Headcases - Wisconsin reveals the cost of "universal" health care.
OpinionJournal.com ^ | July 24, 2007 | Editorial Staff

Posted on 07/23/2007 9:05:29 PM PDT by gpapa

When Louis Brandeis praised the 50 states as "laboratories of democracy," he didn't claim that every policy experiment would work. So we hope the eyes of America will turn to Wisconsin, and the effort by Madison Democrats to make that "progressive" state a Petri dish for government-run health care.

This exercise is especially instructive, because it reveals where the "single-payer," universal coverage folks end up. 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.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; US: Wisconsin
KEYWORDS: costs; healthcare; romneylegacy; socializedmedicine; wisconsin
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To: durasell
So figure 5,000 bucks a year. Still cheaper than private insurance.

Assuming a two-income family, it would cost a family of four about $10,000 per year. High earners will pay even more. Where I work, that four times the employee contribution to a family health insurance plan -- and still more than the family would pay to satisfy the deductable and co-pays to reach the yearly max out of pocket costs.

This plan is a nightmare. Wisconsin has some of the best health care in the nation and it would drive doctors out of the state.

On top of that, it would drive productive workers this plan would drive out of the state.

41 posted on 07/24/2007 5:34:50 AM PDT by MediaMole
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To: durasell
Welfare recipients are already taken care of via medicaid and clinics, etc.

And of course those are freebies right? No one gets taxed to pay for those?

42 posted on 07/24/2007 5:40:01 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (What would a free man do?)
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To: gpapa

Watch businesses as well as individuals flee the Badger State in droves for lower tax states.


43 posted on 07/24/2007 6:05:49 AM PDT by The Great RJ ("Mir we bleiwen wat mir sin" or "We want to remain what we are." ..Luxembourg motto)
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To: Publius6961
How about if Wisconsin starts taxing the adjacent states, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa and Minnessotta? Sooner rather than later, as I can see half the population of those states heading for Wisconsin, anyway...

What the hell is that supposed to mean? By the way, "Minnesota" has one "s", one "t"...not that hard.
44 posted on 07/24/2007 6:06:59 AM PDT by MinnesotaLibertarian
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To: ran20

I like that, lawyerocracy.


45 posted on 07/24/2007 6:23:18 AM PDT by ClaireSolt (Have you have gotten mixed up in a mish-masher?)
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To: AFreeBird

Current info is that our own ‘Rat Governor is against this plan to some extent.

Luckily, Republicans still control our Assembly (House), so they have promised to stop this nonsense. Both the Governor and most Assembly legislators are very beholden to Special Interest Group campaign money from groups that are also against Universal Health Care. For ONCE these dorks took money from groups that could actually save us from ourselves, LOL!

And I think they will. Taxpayers sure don’t want this, and as a small business owner (not easy in this state!) who pays for her own health insurance, I don’t want any more “help” from the Government than they already force on me against my will!


46 posted on 07/24/2007 6:24:50 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

Well, here’s hoping you’re right.


47 posted on 07/24/2007 6:33:39 AM PDT by AFreeBird (Will NOT vote for Rudy. <--- notice the period)
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To: gpapa
It represents an average of $510 a month in higher taxes for every Wisconsin worker.

While $510 in higher taxes for every worker every month initially sounds shocking, if that means no more insurance premiums, co-pays, or deductibles, the tax payer just might end up with more money in his pocket.

Ten years ago my husband and I were paying $750 a month, in premiums alone, for ourselves and one child.

48 posted on 07/24/2007 6:34:59 AM PDT by lucysmom
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To: lucysmom

“While $510 in higher taxes for every worker every month initially sounds shocking, if that means no more insurance premiums, co-pays, or deductibles, the tax payer just might end up with more money in his pocket.”

Not likely.

:)

It will also mean less health care available because people will demand more of it, since they figure they are ‘entitled’ to it... meanwhile the supply will go down.


49 posted on 07/24/2007 6:44:07 AM PDT by GovernmentIsTheProblem (The GOP is "Whig"ing out.)
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To: Kozak
It means states that avoid this idea, and keep their taxes lower will profit.

People go where the jobs are. If state wide health care in Wisconsin makes it less expensive for businesses to locate there, they will, and workers will follow.

50 posted on 07/24/2007 6:46:25 AM PDT by lucysmom
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To: lucysmom

Around $300,000 in the average workers lifetime. That is if it doesn’t increase in the future.

If you put that same $510 a month toward a medical savings plan paying 6% interest, you would have $1,564,054 after 47 years if it went unused.


51 posted on 07/24/2007 6:47:40 AM PDT by listenhillary (¿Qué parter DE "illegal" ousted no entente?)
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To: LouD
Earn twice the average income? Guess what? You’ll be paying for the health care refugees and illegal immigrants who don’t work, don’t work legally, or earn less.

Guess what? You do now. Or maybe you think emergency room care is free.

52 posted on 07/24/2007 6:49:29 AM PDT by lucysmom
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To: lucysmom
What jobs will there be?

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.

53 posted on 07/24/2007 6:50:41 AM PDT by listenhillary (¿Qué parter DE "illegal" ousted no entente?)
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To: GovernmentIsTheProblem
It will also mean less health care available because people will demand more of it, since they figure they are ‘entitled’ to it... meanwhile the supply will go down.

That runs counter to free market theory.

54 posted on 07/24/2007 6:54:21 AM PDT by lucysmom
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To: lucysmom

That runs counter to free market theory.

Single payer is not the free market. It’s taxation at the point of a gun with bureaucrats in charge of the asylum.


55 posted on 07/24/2007 6:56:46 AM PDT by listenhillary (¿Qué parter DE "illegal" ousted no entente?)
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To: listenhillary
...if it went unused.

If it went unused is the obvious operative phrase.

56 posted on 07/24/2007 6:56:53 AM PDT by lucysmom
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To: durasell
This is a hideously bad idea. It puts states in competition with each other to attract businesses. Poor states will suffer a huge drain.

Right. The reason why you think it's a bad idea, is why I think it's a good idea. If a poor state has to compete to attract business, the way it would need to do so is by eliminating the welfare state, and making itself more attractive to young, skilled, educated middle-class people

57 posted on 07/24/2007 6:59:35 AM PDT by PapaBear3625
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To: listenhillary
Single payer is not the free market. It’s taxation at the point of a gun with bureaucrats in charge of the asylum.

And insurance is not run by bureaucrats? I can't think of anything more dysfunctional than a bureaucracy run for profit.

58 posted on 07/24/2007 6:59:43 AM PDT by lucysmom
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To: lucysmom

“That runs counter to free market theory.”

No it doesn’t.

The doctors will leave, and there will be few new market entrants because of how this DISTORTS the free market.

Witness Canada.

‘free’ healthcare in lesser and lesser quantities due to cost control and flight of doctors to the US.


59 posted on 07/24/2007 7:02:00 AM PDT by GovernmentIsTheProblem (The GOP is "Whig"ing out.)
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To: lucysmom

The money would be used, but not in the sense you are thinking. For the majority of healthy people, the money would be used by investment firms loaning capital to entrepreneurs to create more wealth.

The $300,000 in taxation will be sucked down a hole paying government employees to push paper and maybe treat a few medical cases they deem “worthy”.


60 posted on 07/24/2007 7:02:55 AM PDT by listenhillary (¿Qué parter DE "illegal" ousted no entente?)
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