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September 24, 2007
STATEMENT ON HEALTHY WISCONSIN by David Newby, President Wisconsin State AFL-CIO
While we are disappointed that Healthy Wisconsin is no longer part of the Budget discussions, we are neither surprised nor discouraged by this development. Indeed, we commend Democrats for keeping this innovative and sensible solution to our health care crisis front and center during the entire Budget debate. They have done much to advance the solution to the issue which is most important to a vast majority of Wisconsinites.
We look forward to pushing the debate further when Healthy Wisconsin is introduced as a separate bill. In our experience, the more people learn about Healthy Wisconsin, the more it makes sense to them: it gives all of us health care security, it reinforces everything that is best in our current health care system, and, by ensuring that everyone pays their fair share, it makes world class health care affordable to all.
We are dismayed that practically all Republican legislators express opposition to Healthy Wisconsin. Republicans portray themselves as fiscally conservative, yet they do not support a health care plan that spends over a billion dollars less a year than we do now—and yet extends the comprehensive health care we provide to our legislators and our Governor to everyone in the state! By cutting wasteful and unnecessary bureaucracy; stressing prevention, wellness, and quality care; and by reducing the cost of prescription drugs through negotiation with the pharmaceutical companies, the dollars spent through Healthy Wisconsin go for actual health care, not unnecessary overhead or misdirected care. Republicans say they support these principles too, yet they refuse to support the program that best embodies them. We sincerely hope that as they look more closely at Healthy Wisconsin and see how well it fits their principles and goals, that they will put aside inappropriate partisanship and join other legislators to ensure that everyone in Wisconsin has the health care they need.
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