Rx: Unleash forces of a free market

Speakers argue state health plan would be disastrous

By Charlie Mathews • Herald Times Reporter • June 20, 2008

MANITOWOC — A Thursday health-care forum featured an all-out assault on the "Healthy Wisconsin" plan passed in the state Senate earlier this year.

"I want to thank Leah for helping to derail the socialized medicine train in Wisconsin," Michael Fredrich, Manitowoc Custom Molding president and forum moderator, said of state Sen. Leah Vukmir, R-Wauwatosa.

"Unlike the proponents of Healthy Wisconsin, I don't believe the problems of health care can be solved with a government takeover," Vukmir told an audience of about 75 people at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum.

Sponsored by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, Americans for Prosperity, and National Federation of Independent Business-Wisconsin, other speakers included Steve Moore, senior economics writer with The Wall Street Journal; Gerald Frye, president of Pewaukee-based Benefit Services Group; and George Lightbourn, executive vice president of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

Frye said Healthy Wisconsin's $15.2 billion price tag, financed by payroll taxes, would make Wisconsin a less desirable state in which to do business.

"Wisconsin also would become a health-care magnet, providing coverage to all Wisconsin residents, including illegal aliens," Frye said. He contended the plan would result in health care rationing and lower quality.

State Sen. Jon Erpenbach, a Healthy Wisconsin supporter, released a statement Thursday accusing plan opponents of using "scare tactics to defend the status quo …

"By using the buying power of the people of Wisconsin to negotiate drug prices, streamlining administration, discouraging inappropriate emergency room visits, and encouraging healthy lifestyles and preventive care, Healthy Wisconsin will save an estimated $1.3 billion per year," Erpenbach stated.

Lightbourn couldn't disagree more. He said Healthy Wisconsin supporters are engaged in an "elegant deception."

"Once something like this has been adopted, there is no going back," Lightbourn said. "The health-care system, with the level of care and comfort we have today, would be in jeopardy."

The four speakers acknowledged the need for health-care reform but advocated free-market solutions.

"We have a variety of proposals aimed at shaking up the system through real competition … focusing on high health-care costs," Vukmir said of state Republican initiatives.

"People need to have the freedom to shop for insurance products that meet their needs," Vukmir said. "You can buy car or life insurance from other states, but not health insurance. That would bring an enormous amount of competition into the mix."

She said current state mandates stifle competition. The legislator said true health-care reform would create a "paradigm shift, putting individuals, not the government in charge of their health care."

Vukmir said the changes she advocates would lower cost, improve quality, and spur innovation by health-care providers.

Moore said Wisconsin would be making a major mistake if Healthy Wisconsin became law, increasing, he said, employers' cost of doing business.

"You can't tax the businesses that would move out of state," he said.

Online: www.wpriorg; www.afpwi.org; www.wmc.org