…unless you’re a Republican member of the Wisconsin State Assembly. According to those “compassionate conservatives” in Madison. Assembly Republicans have released a list of things that the Republican leadership sent out that they find objectionable in the Governor’s new budget, and included among the many objectionable items is this:

• Autism Insurance Mandate with $1.3 million in new spending to cover the cost of the new mandate in state health insurance program.

So in our state’s multi-billion dollar budget, Assembly Republicans find it objectionable to spend 1.3 million dollars to make sure the autistic children of folks who have state health insurance are provided with coverage - coverage that they don’t have right now. Now maybe it’s because I’m biased, given that I’m the parent of an autistic child, but I simply cannot comprehend how anyone with children would vote against providing health insurance coverage to children who didn’t choose to be born with a life-altering disorder like autism. As Michael Mathias over at Pundit Nation has pointed out, “now that Republicans in the House of Representatives, including Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, are vowing to block an expansion of the SCHIP program, it seems inescapable that poor, very sick children are simply fair game for the more extremist elements of the GOP.” What kind of world is it we live in when folks are willing to use children as pawns in a partisan game of chicken?

I’m absolutely disgusted at the lengths some lawmakers are willing to go to in order to score cheap political points in an attempt to pander to their base, and I refuse to stand idly by while Republicans attempt to punish autistic children and their families simply to save a few dollars. Perhaps those lawmakers who want to cut the autism mandate from the state budget should put a face to all those autistic children who’d suffer, but if they can’t, I’ll do it for them. This is my autistic son Nicholas…

So Democratic and Republican lawmakers are in negotiations to get a compromise state budget finished, and today’s MSJ is reporting that the eight legislative leaders working on finding a compromise state budget have pocketed $617,000 for themselves from special-interest groups and individuals in the first half of the year. What’s interesting is that of that $617,000, about $100,000 came from health care professionals, hospital executives, their statewide organizations and health care lobbyists. Now $100,000 is a lot of money, and it’s worth noting that among the hottest topics of debate and discussion among lawmakers has been the universal health care proposal offered up by Senate Democrats and vehemently opposed by Republicans. According to the article in the MJS, State Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, the chief budget negotiator for Republicans who control the Assembly, received about $10,500 - or just over 20% of the $49,596 his personal campaign fund raised between January and June - from doctors, other medical professionals and groups with a stake in the health care debate.

And of course, when asked about the large percentage of his campaign donations that came from folks associated with the health care industry, Huebsch said he didn’t know why those medical professionals gave that much to his campaign. Now maybe I’m crazy, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s going on here. After all, why would Republicans dare support universal health care when that support might mean the end of the money train from the special interests in the health care industry?

I came across an interesting article in today’s MSJ about the “Healthy Wisconsin” universal healthcare proposal that’s been included in the state budget by Senate Democrats. What’s interesting about the article is that it talks about how the proposal came into being, more specifically the fact that it’s modeled in large part on the ideas of Alain Enthoven, a retired retired professor at Stanford University who specializes in health care economics. Enthoven’s ideas focus on how to use market forces to lower costs and expand coverage. In other words, health care providers would compete to offer the most cost-effective, high-quality health care, and those providers that offered the highest quality and most cost-effective care would be rewarded with more patients. According to the article:

They (market forces) would require restructuring the health care system in a way that eliminates existing incentives that reward hospitals and doctors for providing more care as opposed to efficient care.

What a novel concept…rewarding health care providers for providing efficient care, as opposed to simply providing more care. The proposed plan would force health plans to compete on cost and quality, which in theory should cause doctors and hospitals to become more efficient, providing better care at lower costs.

What’s interesting to note is that Enthoven isn’t a fan of a single-payer universal health care system, stating, “The government often gets it wrong in setting prices.” As I understand it, the “Healthy Wisconsin” proposal wouldn’t be a single-payer system, but rather a system much like the current state employees health care plan. The current state employees health care plan allows employees the option of choosing their own health care provider from a list of approved providers who have met certain benchmarks for quality and efficiency of service. It’s a nice plan, and I appreciate being given the option of choosing the health care provider I feel is best suited to my needs and those of my family.

I know Republicans in the Assembly and Senate are frothing at the mouth in their opposition to the “Healthy Wisconsin” proposal, and while I can appreciate their concerns about higher taxes, this is a plan that makes sense, isn’t “socialized medicine” as some Republicans are so fond of labeling almost all universal health care proposals, and will ultimately benefit each and every resident of the state.