Universal Healthcare in Wisconsin?
Could it be a reality?
Obviously Republicans in both the Assembly and the Senate are fighting tooth and nail to make sure universal healthcare coverage never makes it past the planning stages, but just yesterday Joe Leean, a former Republican state senator and secretary of the state Department of Health and Family Services under former Governor Tommy Thompson, endorsed the universal health care plan of state Senate Democrats. What’s notable about Leean’s endorsement of the plan presented by Senate Democrats is that he’s the first Republican of any note to publicly voice support for the measure. In fact, even Democratic Governor Jim Doyle has expressed some misgivings about the plan proposed by Senate Democrats, so the fact that a Republican who once served as Secretary of Health and Family Services has endorsed the plan is a big step in the right direction.
Also testifying in front of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services was Professor Alain Enthoven of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, a national expert on healthcare. Professor Enthoven said of the Senate Democrats’ Healthy Wisconsin plan:
“This plan is exactly what this state needs to get its health care system on the track of quality and economy…. Wisconsin has the building blocks in place for a successful system. Wisconsin has a great opportunity to lead this nation in the direction of more affordable, better quality care and service.”
Obviously there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done, and Senate Democrats need to clearly articulate how they plan on paying for their plan - which is estimated to cost in the neighborhood of 15 billion dollars a year - but this is definitely a positive development. Unfortunately, as positive a development as this is, it has to be tempered by the fact that Republicans still control the State Assembly, and barring a miracle there’s no way the plan proposed by Senate Democrats makes it past the Assembly.