From 1945 – 1966 the U.S. saw the greatest scientific and technological progress in world history, not to mention the highest standard of living thanks to FDR!

Why are you giving the guy so much credit?

Time to return to import tariffs and fixed exchange rates on currency and get America producing again, before it’s to late.

Government penalties would help us how? What, exactly, do you want America to be producing?

$510 per month!! Over 6 grand a year. Does the cost of private health insurance come anywhere close to that cost?

My company is based in Wisconsin and this would be less than they pay in insurance a month. Each year during open enrollement they tell us what the company contribution for our health care is and it is 975 per month for my family. I work off site in Alabama and it is much less for my family insurance. So for my company it would be a net gain. Personally, I don’t want the government to provide health care so I would not be in favor of this insurance.

Speaking as a Cheesehead from Wisconsin I can tell you this will never pass the legislature. Our governor is a typical dizzy liberal from Madison, a mystical place, twenty miles square, surrounded by reality. He knows this is his last term so he’s going to screw things up as much as possible for his replacement.

Imagine the effect of such a silly policy. This state already is taxed higher than 45 to 47 other states. This would make us number one. YeeHaw. We could watch all the industry leave while all our new residents move in. Screw the fence on our national border. You will need a fence around Wisconsin.

OK, your criticism has some valid points. But just remember that relative “cost” of a new program is defined by [new program cost] – [existing system cost], not from the cost by itself. IOW, if people already paid $500/month for equivalent health care/insurance, then the average cost is really $10/month, which is the increase. If they spent more before, it’s a savings, etc.

Experiments like this are precisely why Federalism is undeniably the best system for the United States. Here in the US, when there is a controversial new idea, a state is able to try it out and see just how well it works. Other states are free to watch and learn.

What is not healthy for the Republic is when the Federal government mandates something across the entire country.

No one here has pointed out that an individual paying $510/month for his or her own healthcare is fundamentally different from the state confiscating that amount from the earnings of the productive, running it through the usual govt bureaucracy, and then paying a system that is now unresponsive to market forces.
The individual paying for his or her own care is much better off. That is the truth about big govt schemes.

The average person can’t not afford an addition 510.00 in taxes a month. It’s criminal to suggest that the voting public pay for this. It will be voted against and will not get approved…

Here in the US, when there is a controversial new idea, a state is able to try it out and see just how well it works. Other states are free to watch and learn.

Frasco,

In theory, that is exactly how it should work. However, by implementing a program such as this, the state of Wisconsin not only forces residents out of the private market and into government programs that are neither efficient nor suited to the needs of the individual (no more private insurance, no more HSA’s or self-insurance outside the purview of the state mandate), but the state would also be assuming a huge and quite likely unaffordable liability. And like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the other unfunded federal liabilities, the state will be forever burdened with the responsibility for the health care of all those initially enrolled.

That is, unless the federal government comes along and bails out the state of Wisconsin, which is the likely result of all this, and quite probably the intent of the Democrats pushing this plan to begin with.

Same here Rob, my portion is $600.00 and that isn’t adding in my dental. :O

From that link Bat One posted –

The Corzine administration has plans to rein in the state’s retiree health costs by making more retirees pay for part of their health premiums and by switching retirees into a network of doctors at negotiated fees.

Lesson: socialized medical care gives us less choice.

The imbalance between what is owed and what states can afford has grown so big that some officials in New Jersey, as in many other states, say they now view a national health care plan as the only realistic long-term solution.

Lesson: government creates the problem and then offers itself up as the solution.

No thank you liberals! I am not buying the bullshit you are selling. Go peddle your wares to the stupid people in Wisconsin and New Jersey. Stay the hell away from the rest of us. You guys are accidents waiting to happen. Liberalism is dangerous.

Frasco,

This is exactly what I had n mind, sadly.

It turns out that New Jersey will need about $58 billion, in today’s dollars, to provide all the care it has promised its current and future retirees. That’s nearly twice the state budget and nearly twice the amount of its outstanding debt.

In addition, New Jersey’s towns and other local governments owe about $10 billion for health care for their own retirees…

The portion of the $58 billion that they need to come up with each year will rise sharply because of soaring health costs and a burgeoning population of retirees, according to the New Jersey Treasury. The state will spend about $1.1 billion on this year’s care, and the figure is expected to double in five years.

Meanwhile, the state’s revenues are largely static. That means that unless something changes, New Jersey will have less money each year to pay for vital services like colleges, hospitals and mass transit. Its popular program to preserve green space just fell victim to the need to devote huge amounts to the retirement plans and debt servicing.

Word of the amount owed for retiree health care over the long term comes on the heels of revelations that the state’s pension fund is woefully short and needs contributions of about $2.2 billion a year to bring it back into balance.

The NY Times tries to play this as a GOP debacle, stating that the shortfall was the result of a lack of state funding to provide for (of course) a tax cut. But the fact is that the state would have been even worse off without the tax cut, as both the state’s economy and state tax revenues were in severe decline due to it’s extremely high rate of taxation.

Democrats must honestly believe that money grows on trees… and that the government owns the nursery.

why is this surprising? it’s very similar to what happened–to me, at least–throughout elementary and high school. whenever there was a group assignment to be done, the teachers put the slow learners and/or stupid people into groups with the quick learners and/or smart people. guess who ended up doing all the work?

Since I am a cheesehead and have been covering this topic since it first got voted in at the Senate (in a sneaky, late-night last minute session I might add), I will add a couple of important things….

First off, the cost to the worker won’t be $510, the actual cost is supposed to be an additional payroll tax that takes another 4% of your social security wage while the business owner would pay another 10.5% off their social security payroll (per person, of course). THis is not a good thing, although it is better than the thought of trying to figure out how to pay $510 a month for “universal” health care.

It’s an absolute travesty. For somebody like me, I pay $60 a month for health care through my employer. With my salary, the new plan would drive my monthly cost up to about $140 a month, more than doubling what I already pay, not to mention the significant jump in what my company would have to pay.

What makes it worse is the fact that the democrats in the Senate who pushed this thing did so with utter arrogance and contempt for the working class. To quote: “the goal is giving everyone coverage by having everybody paying a share of the costs.”

You are right though, the program is designed to provide to everybody, regardless of their employment status, which means that the area will be flooded by people seeking to take advantage of the handout. If they think they can support everybody on their estimated costs, they’re dead wrong, because they didn’t figure on a) people and businesses leaving for a better tax environment, and b) more people coming who don’t work who will be using the system. It’s all elementary math. If the providers shrink and the users grow, the cost goes up and with less people to distribute the cost amongst, the cost to those remaining will skyrocket.

Luckily I think that the Republicans in the state assembly will make sure that it doesn’t pass. I have spoken with the assembly majority leader, and it did not make it in their version of the budget bill and they will block it from being added to the final bill.

The whole thing was just for show. The Senate dems wanted to prove that they are more socialist than every other state, while all the while calling themselves progressive and working for the American people.

Personally, I think that there is something bad in Madison’s water supply.

Neiman

The Dakota’s are lookin better every day.

I applaud the state legislature for taking the necessary steps in protecting the “General Welfare” clause of the U.S. Constitution.

That clause is in the preamble, you jack ass. It isn’t law.

And besides, the clause is “promote the general welfare,” not provide for it. Meaning policies that leave you free to be successful and take care of yourself, not policies that make me pay for doctor’s visits for rent-seeking layabouts like yourself.