WMC Survey Shows Support for Healthy WI & WHP

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), along with the conservative Club for Growth, released a survey yesterday that found 64 percent of respondents believe:

[T]he best way to reform the current private health care system is to cut costs and provide more choices by increasing competition among private insurance companies and by requiring health care providers to be more transparent with their actual costs.

Of course, WMC thinks this means that people oppose a reform plan like Healthy Wisconsin or the Wisconsin Health Plan (WHP); but, in reality, this is essentially what those plans would do, especially the part about increasing competition among private insurance companies (the WHP would also increase the push for transparency via its use of HDHPs).

The alternative that respondents to the WMC/Club for Growth survey were allowed to choose was the following, which was supposed to represent plans like Healthy WI and the WHP:

[T]he best way to reform health care is to replace the current private health insurance system with a new universal insurance system that is run by the Wisconsin state government.

It isn't difficult to see how this survey is part of a broader attempt by conservative critics to frame Healthy WI and the WHP as "government run health care," thereby utilizing the negative connotations associated with that phrase; yet, both plans solidify, as opposed to replace, our system of private payers and private providers.

What's more, most polls -- such as this NY Times/CBS poll from February (see questions 27 and 28) -- are clear that the public widely supports the government involving itself in the health care market to ensure the entire population has adequate coverage; it's the issue of care that most people want to protect from government intrusion.

The more astute conservatives try to link the two by putting forward a rationing argument that claims by controlling coverage, the government would be, in effect, controlling care.

But this argument assumes the government would be able to limit coverage without public oversight. After all, if the government gets to the point where reducing coverage is on the table in an effort to avoid increasing revenue, the public still has a choice -- reduce coverage, increase revenue, or some combination of the two.

Some universal coverage countries, like the UK, have opted to limit coverage in an effort to reign in revenue. But others, like Switzerland, Germany, France, etc., have not.

And figuring out this coverage vs. revenue equation is an ongoing discussion that each country -- or state, in the case of Wisconsin -- should be able to have in a rational, democratic, and open manner, rather than the irrational way that rationing occurs in our current fragmented system (i.e., either your employer offers good coverage or it doesn't).

Further complicating the conservative argument about "government run health care" is the other argument the same commentators put forward about state mandates. The mandates argument is that the government in Wisconsin, and some other states, has been guilty of requiring insurance companies to increase benefits too much, which has driven up the cost of coverage.

So, on the one hand, government would surely reduce coverage and, thereby, interfere in decisions that should be left to the doctor and the patient. Yet, on the other hand, government is increasing doctor-patient options too much by mandating certain amounts of coverage.

It's quite a tangled web, and one that ultimately raises the question: At what point does opposition become merely opposition for opposition's sake?

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UPDATE I: Check out the Brawler's take on the re-hashed "Healthier Choices" plan from the WMC.

The main thrust of WMC's Healthier Choices proposal is allowing for a supposed "diversity" of health care plans, which is essentially a euphemism for keeping the door open to under-insurance and adverse selection, as I discuss in this post.

UPDATE II: Cory Liebmann offers more on the WMC/Club for Growth survey.

Taking the Hysterical Out of Hysterical Anti-Tax Message

(UPDATED BELOW)

Steve Walters of the Journal Sentinel captures a back-and-forth that took place yesterday between state Revenue Secretary Roger Ervin and WMC president Jim Haney on the role of the state's corporate lobby.

The harsher tone the Doyle administration is taking with the WMC this year is noticeable. Not only did the WMC run ads against Doyle, it also poured a ton of money into the attorney general race to keep Kathleen Falk -- Doyle's preferred candidate -- out of office. And lately the group has been speaking out against the revenue increases in Doyle's proposed budget.

Ervin said that WMC focuses too much on taxes at the expense of other factors that also impact economic development and business climate. Haney responded by saying that while the Doyle administration would like WMC to say taxes aren't bad, "That's not true."

Of course, not all WMC members would agree with Haney. According to Northwestern Mutual Life CEO Edward Zore at a forum in Milwaukee in February: "Taxes for us are not bad." And WMC board member Randy Smith, president of City Brewing Company, noted last month: "Sure, taxes are important but they don't make or break us."

And that comment by Smith really sums up what Ervin was saying. It's not that WMC needs to completely abandon its anti-tax message; but to fully address the varying needs of businesses in the state, it should balance it with other messages, even if that means backing issues that rely on public revenue such as job training and university research.

For instance, the results of WMC's annual survey on the Wisconsin economy are in for 2007, and while the group hasn't released the full results on its website, the press release on the survey emphasized the high demand for skilled workers in the state and the overall strong confidence Wisconsin manufacturers have in the future of the state's economy.

In fact, according to the survey, almost 60 percent of respondents said they couldn't find qualified candidates to fill job openings in the area of skilled production, and 43 percent said they plan to increase hiring in the future.

Doesn't this seem to be a great time to put the weight of the state's biggest lobby group behind the budget initiatives aimed at increasing research and retention funding for the UW, along with pushing for more state funding for the technical college system?

A Wisconsin Taxpayer Alliance study just last month found that the technical college system is one of the biggest economic drivers in the state with an annual economic impact of nearly $7 billion, and its an entity that's tailor-made to churn out the skilled production workers our state's businesses need. According to the study, taxpayers get a return of $3.62 for every $1.00 put into the tech colleges.

Likewise, in Milwaukee, UWM chancellor Carlos Santiago is fighting to revitalize Milwaukee as the state's economic engine by expanding the university's engineering and biotechnology fields, the effects of which would undoubtedly benefit state manufacturers.

But all of this takes money. And this money comes through the state biennial budget.

As long as WMC's sole message on the state budget is opposition to revenue increases, it's, in effect, arguing against some of the very funding that could help its members get the skilled workers and research opportunities they need.

This doesn't mean, of course, that the WMC needs to back everything in the budget or even the majority of revenue increases. But press releases like this one that simply shoot down any and all revenue increases without any consideration for what those increases could help fund is overly-simplistic at best and harmful to the state's economy at worst.

Where's the press release arguing that the technical college system should be made a higher state budget priority? Where's the radio ad urging legislators to back UWM's research growth initiative or funding for bio-fuels research at UW-Stevens Point? Where's the television spot aimed at preserving the Wisconsin Shares child care program so parents can go to work and know their kids are safe?

It's time WMC takes the hysterical out of its hysterical anti-tax message and starts positively contributing to the varied solutions that are needed to further our state's economy.

UPDATE: The WisPolitics Budget Blog is reporting that the JFC decided today to cut half of the budget funding for a $6 million tech college grant initiative that was intended for, according to the governor's proposal, "targeted job training for the state's major growth industries in the manufacturing and business services sectors."

This is a perfect example of something WMC should be putting its weight behind. Does anyone think that the $3 million would've been cut if WMC stood up for this modest, yet economically important, initiative?

LATE UPDATE (5/3): Still nothing out of WMC on the JFC's move yesterday to cut funding for skilled worker training. But the group did take the time to release a memo to the JFC urging legislators to cut more revenue from the budget.

It just defies logic. WMC releases an internal survey that found 60 percent of responding members couldn't find enough skilled workers to fill jobs in the last year. Literally one day after the survey results were released, legislators cut funding in half for a skilled job training initiative and WMC doesn't say a word.

Dissent in the WMC Ranks?

The Cap Times had an interesting article yesterday on the growing politicization of the corporate lobby group, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC).

I've discussed before how many business leaders don't cite taxes as their biggest concern, or even close to their biggest concern, although it's clearly the biggest message coming out of the group that claims to represent their interests.

In a WMC survey last spring, for instance, taxes landed 7th on the list of business concerns behind health care costs, competition, labor shortage, energy, regulation, and economic slowdown. Similarly, a recent survey of biotech companies in Wisconsin listed skilled and educated workers, access to university research, health care costs, and access to investment capital as the top concerns; taxes didn't make the list.

And, in February, Northwestern Mutual Life CEO Edward Zore surprised an audience of business leaders in Milwaukee when he told them: "Taxes for us are not bad."

In yesterday's Cap Times article, a similar sentiment was struck by one of WMC's own board members. According to Randy Smith, president of City Brewing Company in La Crosse, "Sure, taxes are important but they don't make or break us."

Also at issue was the way WMC has a knack for trashing the state's business climate -- which it ties entirely to taxes via rankings by the right-wing Tax Foundation -- while ignoring many of the positive aspects that make doing business and living in Wisconsin viable options. To be sure, when a variety of economic factors are considered, Wisconsin actually ranks as one of the top states for business performance, vitality, and development capacity.

WMC's leadership claims it's not supposed to be a cheerleader for the state, but there's a lot of reasonable middle ground between cheerleading for the state and trashing it. And considering the group's extremely deep pockets, what makes WMC's tunnel vision rhetoric so destructive is that it distracts the state from tackling public policy issues that could significantly help Wisconsin businesses.

With some of those issues -- such as health care reform and investment in university research -- just around the corner in Wisconsin politics, the question becomes: How much more of the WMC trash are members going to be willing to take?