Posted by
Reeson on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 1:43:33 PM
The
American Thinker ran a good piece today by Mr. Patrick Poole. I have included the link and a few excerpts here:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/01/governor_schwarzenegger_should.html By Patrick Poole
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger kicked off his first full term in office this week by announcing during his state-of-the-state address that he intends to implement a state health insurance plan to cover all residents, including illegal aliens. But before riding the universal health care train too far, Gov. Schwarzenegger might want to make a stop in Nashville to see exactly how such a plan has actually worked for Tennessee, where that state's abysmal TennCare program has forced dozens of hospitals out of business, pushed thousands of doctors and other health care professionals out of the state, destroyed any semblance of competitive health insurance market, and nearly drove the state government into bankruptcy.
The Tennessee Tax Revolt of 2000 denied politicians the only financial avenue to keep TennCare afloat as it was. In the political aftermath, Gov. Don Sundquist became the most reviled governor in Tennessee history (no mean feat in a state where political scandal and corruption have been the norm), and many of the state legislators who had supported the state income tax chose not to run for reelection the next election cycle faced with the inevitability that they would be tossed from office; many of those legislators that tried to keep their seats got the boot. Sundquist's successor, Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen, has been forced to dismantle the program a piece at a time, and the bloated remains of TennCare still stress the state budget.
The catastrophic consequences of the TennCare experiment have been the dramatic lowering of the quality of health care statewide due to numerous hospital closures and the exit of countless doctors and health care professionals to other states, the neglect of many other critical areas of the state budget to cover TennCare costs, and the utter devastation of the health insurance market in Tennessee (at the time my study was published, only seven health insurance carriers in the country would write policies in Tennessee; I understand that it is even less today).
There is much for Gov. Schwarzenegger to learn from Tennessee's first-hand experience with universal health care before committing the largest state in the US to it.
But perhaps the most important is that trying to defy virtually every known law of economics is a fool's proposition, no matter how loudly you are cheered on by the media, state bureaucrats, liberal activists and Democratic legislators in Sacramento and Washington D.C.
Secondly, beware of the siren songs of big business. In Tennessee's case, many employers gladly dumped their health care plans and transferred their employees to the public dole and added that money to their bottom line.
Finally, California is already seeing many workers and businesses protesting that state's high taxes and near-tyrannical regulatory system by voting with their feet. Nevada, Arizona, and Oregon have been the unlikely beneficiaries of the Golden State's tax-and-spend, regulate-and-oppress policies.
The staggering number of uninsured Americans is truly a tragedy, and Gov. Schwarzenegger has his heart in the right place by trying to tackle the problem head-on. But trying to solve the problem with taxpayer-financed universal health care coverage is a prescription for an unmitigated fiscal and health care disaster.