|
Healthy
Wisconsin: Torinus still
doesn't "get it…."
By Jack E. Lohman
John Torinus has it
wrong in his recent
assessment
of Healthy Wisconsin, and business readers are left with a
misleading analysis that could send them down a more costly
path.
Torinus says "…high
payroll taxes paid by employers inevitably put a damper on wage
increases." Of course he's right but very incomplete. He ignores
vital, offsetting factors that good business leaders would
surely include, an accuracy he would expect from his own
managers.
First, the 10.5%
employer tax replaces the 15% most employers are
currently paying for employee insurance premiums, thus wages are
more negatively affected today than after the 4.5% of
wage savings in HW is applied.
Since when does a
10.5% cost have impact but a 15% cost doesn't? Most business
leaders would swap the higher for the lower any day, but
obviously not John Torinus.
Secondly, he points
to the 4% employee tax and doesn't mention that it offsets part
of what they are already paying -- and additionally, it includes
coverage of limited vision, dental for children, mental parity,
and pharmaceuticals employees are not currently getting paid
for. A 16% increase in coverage, and there's no additional cost
for a family plan!
Torinus scoffs that David Riemer ignores the
"consumerism" in his earlier plan, which included health savings
accounts. But there's a rather simple reason: according to the
Bell Policy Center "HSAs
coupled with high-deductible health plans increase
cost-consciousness among enrollees, but have little effect on
overall health care costs."
That's obviously not what Torinus wants to hear, because he uses
HSAs in his own company. Health costs will indeed decrease for
his company but they will increase for employees. That's the pay
cut he argues against! When employees realize that, will they
then demand higher wages to compensate for lower benefits?
Healthy Wisconsin
makes a systemic change that Torinus apparently doesn't like,
nor does the debater he cites -- Rep. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa)
-- and the other Republicans who share in the $600,000 of
campaign contributions they've received from the insurance
industry. When an industry gives this kind of money, you just
know they are on the losing side of the argument. But, money
talks.
HW eliminates the 31%
of wasted middleman costs that are consumed by the current
insurance bureaucracy. For the same dollars we are spending
today to cover 90% of Wisconsinites, we can provide greater
coverage to 100% instead, so it's hard to understand why Torinus
doesn't see the forest through the trees.
These systemic
changes eliminate the costs that add nothing to healthcare, like
insurance broker commissions, actuarial costs, costs for
cherry-picking and gatekeeping, high executive salaries and the
ever-rising shareholder profits. Even the insurer's high costs
for lobbying and campaign contributions (to Vukmir and others)
that are passed on to the patient are eliminated under Healthy
Wisconsin.
It would be a
disservice to the business community to not include all of these
tradeoffs, and corporate leaders should quit listening to both
sides and do their own math. Simply multiply current payroll by
10.5% and compare the result with what is now being paid for
employee health care and its associated administration costs.
Now you have your answer.
Torinus deserves
great credit for being ahead of the curve on health care, but in
this writers' view he's not far enough ahead. While he has
reduced his costs, he could reduce them more because at least
some of his employees are still stuck with the 31% burden.
Torinus owes it to the business community to get all the facts
on the table. Readers may not agree with mine or his facts, but
they are experienced business leaders and can sort them out for
themselves
Healthy Wisconsin is
not perfect, as
David Kliber points out. But we should fix it, not trash it,
and the Republicans should take that responsibility. We need a
small business transitional tax break, and we should have the
health board selected by the new, independent ethics board
rather than the governor.
Winston Churchill
once said that "Americans will always do the right thing, but
only after failing at everything else." Let's prove him wrong.
-- Lohman is a retired business owner from Colgate and is a
founding member of
www.BusinessCoalition.net. He authored "Politicians - Owned
and Operated by Corporate America" and can be reached at
jelohman@gmail.com.
Healthy
Wisconsin was not developed overnight. It is the creation
and melding of three very dedicated groups who put years of
effort into it. Though I'm sure it goes back further, the
modern effort began with David Newby and the AFL-CIO, who
were first instrumental in developing the
Coalition for
Wisconsin Health
in 1991
(which is headed by Art Taggert, and which led to the
Miller-Benedict plan), and then David's group developed the
Wisconsin Health Care
Partnership Plan in 2002. David Riemer and Lisa Ellinger
added their efforts after leaving the Doyle Administration
and founding the
Wisconsin Health Plan. Unfortunately that was only a
two-year project that recently came to an end, though I do
hope David and Lisa remain heavily involved going forward.
I mention all of this because John Torinus mentions "Riemer
I" (the original Wisconsin Health Plan) and Riemer II, which
is really the combined
Healthy Wisconsin
that all three groups came together on. I'm a late-comer,
but very pleased with the resulting plan.
Not confusing
enough? Then I could go on to list the scores of other
volunteers that devote time to the project, especially Drs.
Gene and Linda Farley who travel the state speaking wherever
needed. Thanks to all. It is especially warming to know that
this small, dedicated group of volunteers are knocking the
socks off the very well funded insurance industry and their
highly paid executives. It brings back memories of our fight
with the tobacco industry.
|
