Americans for Prosperity - Wisconsin (AFP) strongly supports 2007 Assembly Bill 47 (AB 47) authored by Representative Kaufert; and 2007 Assembly Bill 872 (AB 872) authored by Representative Vukmir.   AFP believes the best approach to expanded health care coverage is to adopt policies that promote consumerism and free market approaches to Wisconsin’s health care system; and both AB 47 and AB 872 accomplish those goals if they become law.   Assembly Bill 47:  AB 47 adopts the federal provisions that allow citizens to deduct state income contributions from taxes used for Health Savings Accounts.  HSAs are a unique form of health insurance that combines high deductible health insurance plans with a healthcare savings vehicle, the HSA.  Dollars in an HSA can be used to cover a patient’s out-of-pocket medical expenses, including costs not covered by an insurer, extended coverage, or other expenses.   The key hallmark of HSAs is that both contributions to the savings account and expenses paid out of the health savings account are 100% tax-deductible against one’s federal income tax liability.  Individuals own HSAs and this creates an opportunity for people to accumulate personal savings for their healthcare over the course of one’s life.   HSAs are more flexible than traditional health insurance plans because the individual maintains control over how HSA dollars are spent.  This flexibility provides individuals with more control and customizable care to suit their healthcare needs, which has earned HSA plans the nickname of “consumer-driven healthcare.” Under traditional insurance plans, patients rarely observe the true costs of healthcare because they pay, at most, very small co-pays, and this encourages overuse. HSA users are more closely connected with the costs of their care, which makes these users more cautious in healthcare consumption.   HSAs provide individuals with more choice, better insurance, lower costs, and improved health, but Wisconsin citizens are not afforded all the benefits.  As is the case in Wisconsin, if HSA contributions are not tax deductible at the state level, the benefits are undermined.  Virtually every state across the nation, except Wisconsin and three others allow the HSA tax advantage and AFP believes that it is appropriate to pass HSA legislation now as a benefit to taxpayers and as a cost saving measure for consumers. Assembly Bill 872:  The core principle of consumerism is to shift responsibility for health care decisions back to consumers.  For consumers to drive their health care decisions, however, they need information about the true quality and costs of health care and medical procedures and Assembly Bill 872 brings about disclosure of health care information.   The key purposes of transparency are to help patients make informed choices and control costs, to introduce a metric for providers and insurers to reward efficiency and quality, to enable providers to benchmark their performance (cost and quality), to provide information necessary for a competitive/market based system in health care, and to provide cost standards that help develop trust between patients and providers. Critical factors that should be made transparent include the total cost of caring for a condition, the costs of particular health care services, the risks of treatment and illnesses, and the quality record of care and performance provided by doctors and medical facilities.Although Wisconsin does provide for cost transparency and disclosure to a degree, more significant approaches to disclosure of costs and quality are needed.  To this end, AFP-WI supports policy changes such as those provided in AB 872 to achieve greater transparency and efficiency in health care delivery systems. For these reasons, Americans for Prosperity urges members of the Wisconsin Assembly to support on both AB 47 and AB 872.