Summary of the Wisconsin State Senate Health Plan

Features of "Healthy Wisconsin"

• Provides health insurance to all not covered by Medicare, Medicaid, Badgercare or TRICARE
• Begins in 2009
• Cost estimated to be $15.2 billion in first year
• Funded by 14.5% payroll tax – 10.5% on employer and 4% on employee
• Operated by newly created board appointed by Governor
• Board negotiates fees with providers and solicits bids from health plans
• Provides coverage comparable to that provided to state employees
• Family would pay $600 deductible and $20/visit co-pay.  Out of pocket expenses limited to $3,000/year.  No co-pay or deductible for preventive care or for children

What you need to know about “Healthy Wisconsin”

Healthy Wisconsin should look familiar to anyone who has studied health care issues in the past forty years.  It is a typical, big government, system that is remarkably similar to the Medicaid and Medicare programs operated by the federal government.  In spite of the proponents’ insistence that this plan is good for Wisconsin families, the reality is quite different.

The plan was snuck in the back door.  It was a last-minute amendment to the state budget with only one perfunctory hearing.

Healthy Wisconsin is a huge tax increase:

• The $15.2 billion cost of the plan would be the largest tax increase ever enacted by any state.
• The new 14.5% payroll tax would move Wisconsin’s tax rank from number seven to number one.
• The tax rate is guaranteed to increase in the future.
• The unelected board created to operate Healthy Wisconsin could increase the payroll tax by an additional $1.5 billion with no public input or legislative interference.

Healthy Wisconsin addresses cost containment by rationing health care:

• The plan requires the Wisconsin Secretary of Administration to write rules to contain health care costs whenever state health care costs are likely to exceed the national average.
• As with any single-payer system, cost containment comes in the form of rationing care.

Healthy Wisconsin will create huge winners and losers:

• By one estimate, state and local government will save $1.4 billion.

• By contrast, private employers that currently do not provide health insurance will pay $1.1 billion more.

• Proponents acknowledge that the plan will cause the loss of thousand of jobs.

Healthy Wisconsin is unfair :

• The governing board includes five members from organized labor and just four members representing business.

• Under Healthy Wisconsin it is allowable for employers to supplement the benefits provided and to pay for any of the cost incurred by employees.  This effectively permits labor to opt out of Healthy Wisconsin.

• Teachers are specifically exempted from Healthy Wisconsin.

  Healthy Wisconsin is fixing a system that is not broken:

• Only 5% of Wisconsin citizens are without health insurance compared to 16% nationally.

• Wisconsin’s health care system was ranked number one in the nation in a recent release from the federal Agency for Health Care Research.