The federal government Tuesday predicted health care spending will double by 2017, from $2.1 trillion to $4.3 trillion. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also said that $1 of every $5 spent in the nation will go toward health care.
That's disheartening news, but it also should be a call to action for a state Legislature that talked an awful lot about addressing health care costs and access during the last election cycle but has done little since.
Particularly with health care a central issue in the presidential campaign, it would be an opportune time for the Legislature to shake its do-nothing reputation - something some of its own members complained about Tuesday - and tackle this critical issue.
No doubt, lawmakers understand the importance of health care issues.
"Health care is the biggest public policy issue of our time," 80th District Assemblyman Brett Davis, R-Oregon, said shortly after winning re-election in 2006. "This issue has been dragging on for far too long."
Many of the other candidates for state offices in November 2006 were saying the same thing.
And during last year's budget process, state Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, took a leadership position promoting his Healthy Wisconsin universal health care proposal. When that plan was pulled off the table in the late summer, Erpenbach vowed to bring it back for debate soon. He's still making that promise.
Davis and Erpenbach represent their parties' conflicting viewpoints on how to solve health care problems. That conflict extends all the way to national politics. At the risk of simplifying the debate, Republicans believe consumers should be allowed to drive down health care costs, while Democrats believe government should lead cost-control efforts while also ensuring coverage for all.
During the last Assembly campaign, Davis touted insurance co-ops, where groups of people pool their resources to provide less expensive health care for members. He said he'd work on forming a steering committee to examine the health care crisis on the state level. Republicans also generally favor tax credits to help ease the pain of health care costs to consumers.
Erpenbach's Healthy Wisconsin proposal, on the other hand, would have created a statewide payroll tax for all employees and employers that would replace health insurance premiums. Democrats promised the payroll tax would be less expensive to consumers than premiums.
Two radically different approaches to solving health care dilemmas, yes, but points worth debating nonetheless.
U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and many others have said that health care solutions are most likely going to have to be generated by states and trickle up to the national level. States will be testing grounds for ideas. Those that work would stand a better chance of being accepted nationally.
For that to happen, however, state lawmakers must be willing to do more than talk about solving health care problems. They must be willing to roll up their sleeves and do the difficult work. So far, neither political party in Wisconsin has seemed willing to take that step. Their constituents should be disappointed, if not downright angry.
Come the fall, when state lawmakers again will be making the campaign rounds, it would be much better to hear from them what's been done about health care than what they'd like to do.
That's disheartening news, but it also should be a call to action for a state Legislature that talked an awful lot about addressing health care costs and access during the last election cycle but has done little since.
Particularly with health care a central issue in the presidential campaign, it would be an opportune time for the Legislature to shake its do-nothing reputation - something some of its own members complained about Tuesday - and tackle this critical issue.
No doubt, lawmakers understand the importance of health care issues.
"Health care is the biggest public policy issue of our time," 80th District Assemblyman Brett Davis, R-Oregon, said shortly after winning re-election in 2006. "This issue has been dragging on for far too long."
Many of the other candidates for state offices in November 2006 were saying the same thing.
And during last year's budget process, state Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, took a leadership position promoting his Healthy Wisconsin universal health care proposal. When that plan was pulled off the table in the late summer, Erpenbach vowed to bring it back for debate soon. He's still making that promise.
Davis and Erpenbach represent their parties' conflicting viewpoints on how to solve health care problems. That conflict extends all the way to national politics. At the risk of simplifying the debate, Republicans believe consumers should be allowed to drive down health care costs, while Democrats believe government should lead cost-control efforts while also ensuring coverage for all.
During the last Assembly campaign, Davis touted insurance co-ops, where groups of people pool their resources to provide less expensive health care for members. He said he'd work on forming a steering committee to examine the health care crisis on the state level. Republicans also generally favor tax credits to help ease the pain of health care costs to consumers.
Erpenbach's Healthy Wisconsin proposal, on the other hand, would have created a statewide payroll tax for all employees and employers that would replace health insurance premiums. Democrats promised the payroll tax would be less expensive to consumers than premiums.
Two radically different approaches to solving health care dilemmas, yes, but points worth debating nonetheless.
U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and many others have said that health care solutions are most likely going to have to be generated by states and trickle up to the national level. States will be testing grounds for ideas. Those that work would stand a better chance of being accepted nationally.
For that to happen, however, state lawmakers must be willing to do more than talk about solving health care problems. They must be willing to roll up their sleeves and do the difficult work. So far, neither political party in Wisconsin has seemed willing to take that step. Their constituents should be disappointed, if not downright angry.
Come the fall, when state lawmakers again will be making the campaign rounds, it would be much better to hear from them what's been done about health care than what they'd like to do.
