And yes, TNcare was a financial disaster and I applaud Bredesen's integrity for admitting it, and for trying to fix it.
TennCare was jammed through in a “crisis” using the claim that it literally would be self-financing. That is, Tennessee was going to put all of its Medicaid members onto managed care (not a bad idea) and that the resultant savings would be so huge that the state could afford to expand coverage to 400,000 or so uninsured.
TennCare “succeeded” in that it covered hundreds of thousands who might otherwise have been uninsured, but the program was far from self-financing and the resultant fiscal burden was far too great for the state to bear. I think the liberals who promoted the program hoped that when push came to shove, the state would relent with higher taxes rather than “cold-heartedly” take away coverage from so many. In the end, the state had to terminate coverage for at least 125,000 (maybe more: can’t remember the exact figures). So it worked while it lasted (less than 10 years) and then went bust.
Unfortunately, the current crowd in Congress seems far less tax-averse than Tennesseans. But whether the realities of “universal coverage” are met by tossing off millions who became accustomed to a handout or by unprecedented increases in taxes, the lesson is the same: anyone claiming to be able to bankroll government-run health care by relying on savings from waste, fraud and abuse is a charlatan or seriously misinformed.
Pharoah Phil would ram any tax down our throats (I know full well what he did as Nashville Mayor), only that he well recalled what happened when Scumquist tried to pull that stunt, and the anger would be reignited in an instant if he tried to force that illegal act on us.