On its face, the Senate Democrats’ universal health care plan contained in the Senate Democrat budget is an outrageous boondoggle that at a cost of $15.2 billion annually is the largest tax increase in the history of Wisconsin. It will be funded by a payroll tax paid by workers and their employers.
The deeper you dig into the plan, the more questions you find. At my request the Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) prepared an analysis of the plan. Here are some of the troubling aspects I found under the category of who is eligible.
The LFB writes this about teachers, with the key phrase in bold:
Municipal Employment Relations Law. Provide that the definition of economic issue would include "health insurance coverage of benefits not provided under the Healthy Wisconsin Plan."
Under current law, the definition includes the term "health insurance." Further, provide that, for the purpose of determining if a school district employer has maintained current fringe benefits requirements under current qualified economic offer (QEO) law, the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) would be required to consider the employer to have maintained its health care coverage benefit if the employer provides health care coverage to its school district professional employees through the Healthy Wisconsin Plan and supplements that coverage, if necessary, to produce a health care coverage benefit that is actuarially equivalent to the health care coverage benefit in place before the school district professional employees become covered under the Healthy Wisconsin Plan.
Provide that, if a dispute arises concerning the employer’s determination of actuarial equivalence or what supplemental benefits are sufficient to achieve actuarial equivalence, the dispute must be resolved by a neutral person who is designated by WERC.In other words, teachers are guaranteed to retain their current coverage. The rest of us will take the plan dictated by the government health authority.
Also under eligibility, the LFB writes:
In addition, designate the following persons as eligible to participate in the plan: (1) a person and the members of that person's immediate family, if the person is gainfully employed in Wisconsin and the person and the members of the person’s immediate family satisfy criteria (c) through (e); (2) a child under age 18 who resides with his or her parent in Wisconsin, even if the parent does not yet satisfy criteria (a), regardless of how long the child has resided in Wisconsin; and (3) a pregnant woman who resides in Wisconsin, even if the woman does not yet satisfy criteria (a), regardless of how long the woman has resided in Wisconsin.Generally, someone over the age of 18, a college student for example, is covered under their parents’ private insurer. Under universal health care, private insurers would be eliminated. If the college student isn’t working, who pays for this coverage?
The LFB continues:
For an eligible individual who has no social security wages, 10% of federal adjusted gross income, up to the maximum amount of income that is subject to social security tax.What about individuals who retire at age 60 but do not take Social security until age 65? They have very small incomes, and are relegated to living off their savings. Compounding the situation is the large influx of baby boomers who will be retiring. Who will pay for their coverage?
On another provision, the LFB writes:
Require the DOA Secretary, in consultation with the Authority's Board, to establish by rule a program to contain health care costs in Wisconsin during any year in which the Board determines that health care costs increase at a rate exceeding the national average of medical inflation.An un-elected authority will be deciding pricing and rationing.
And finally, the LFB writes that the consulting firm, the Lewin Group estimates that state and local governments would save approximately $1.36 billion in the plan’s first year of operation.
In part, this savings is due to the fact that some of these individuals (employees, retirees and dependents) will assume a greater portion of their health care costs than is currently the case.In other words, some Wisconsin residents will pay more under universal health care.
The devil is in the details, and the Senate Democrats’ plan to mandate universal health care coverage has more than a few devils.
Here is
the document the LFB produced for me about the Senate Democrats’ plan.
