Why there's no compromising with Republicans on Healthy Wisconsin

On Sunday the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel edit board criticized the Wisconsin Senate Democrats' Healthy Wisconsin plan as going too far (a position with which the Brawler disagrees) and criticized the Republican Assembly for not having a health plan at all (a position the Brawler finds strangely familiar).

The answer, the edit board intoned -- as most edit boards do in such situations -- is that the Dems and Republicans must reach across the aisle and reach a (word most loved by editorialists) compromise.

As an example of such reaching across the aisle, the edit board harks back to health care plan proposed in 2005 by Rep. Curt Gielow (R-Mequon) and John Richards (D-Milwaukee), elements of which are in Healthy Wisconsin.

Surely bipartisanship can flourish if the two sides sit down and work it out, the edit board clearly hopes.

To which the Brawler replied: Hogwash.

And again he says: hogwash.

If we're ever going to see meaningful health care reform in Wisconsin it will be against the wishes of many GOP legislators, not with their assistance. They're too wedded, ideologically and financially, to the status quo. Those that may sympathize with reform live in fear of being attacked as RINOs and facing challengers in their next primary.

Let's just revisit the reaction that the Gielow-Richards plan, so beloved by the JS edit board, got from Gielow's fellow Republicans (From the 6/16/05 Capital Times):

Rep. Robin Vos, R-Racine, described the plan as a form of government-mandated "Hillary-care," referring to former first lady Hillary Clinton's health insurance proposal of the 1990s.

"It's hard to know what to say," Vos told Gielow. "Radical is a kind term for this program, in my opinion."

Rep. Leah Vukmir, R-Wauwatosa, called it "nothing short of a framework for socialized medicine in Wisconsin" that would create a "slippery slope of compulsory managed care and unending tax increases."

Sen. Ted Kanavas, R-Brookfield, said he was "outraged" by the "ludicrous" plan. "I do not want a system where a Madison bureaucrat decides on a whim what doctors I am able to see or who provides care for my family," he said in a statement.

"Socialism and more government should not be the way of this new millennium," he said.

Same old shibboleths that have greeted Healthy Wisconsin -- and every other serious health care reform of the past 60 years.

The Journal Sentinel edit board has admirable goals for what it believes health care reform should accomplish -- portability, covering the uninsured, holding down costs. It's time the edit board stops pretending that Assembly and Senate Republicans share these goals. And then editorialize appropriately. 

Comments

[Seth Zlotocha]

That article's a great find. I'm going to need to keep those lines in mind for future posts.

[Peter]

There's never any compromise with the right-wing and conservatives of any stripe. That's part of their whole philosophical ethic and strategic operations.

It's facile and naive to believe that they'll ever compromise, especially on something that counters their entire set of beliefs like universal healthcare - including being able to snow over parts of the electorate. Like the New Deal established a set of Democrats for decades, universal healthcare could bring thousands of Wisconsinites into the Democratic fold for a long time. Healthcare reform is that fundamental in electoral politics.

So they won't compromise - and it will be over the dead bodies of Republicans that this gets pushed through. Which is just the idea. I can't wait to see the Assembly Democratic majority come January of 2009.