My Op-Ed and More on the Dillon Plan

by: John Freeman

Mon Jul 27, 2009 at 14:31:43 PM EDT

Cross-posted at JohnFreeman.org

This morning, my op-ed on Andy Dillon’s health care proposal appeared in the LSJ. I’ve pasted it below. But I would like to add a few things.

There’s a reason that you see some Republicans, like Mike Cox and Mike Bishop, supporting Dillon’s plan. The plan is a retread of a proposal by Michigan Senate Republicans in 2005. The Free Press points out that Senate Democrats were vocally opposed to it. They were right to do so. The plan was bad for Michigan then, and it’s bad for Michigan now.

MichLib's Eric B. is point-on when he says this plan is “building a future based on making things worse for people.” A future constructed by winning a race to the bottom is no future at all. This is true not only of benefits for teachers, but for the economy in general. There are some who say that in order to compete for business, we’ve got to slash benefits, cut back on environmental protections, reduce wages, and scale back regulations. That’s an outdated way of thinking.

The number one thing businesses look for is a high quality-of-life -- that means world-class schools with great teachers, a 21st century infrastructure, pristine natural resources, and affordable high-quality healthcare. If we really want to transform Michigan, making sure we have a high quality of life is the way to do it. The Dillon plan will do nothing to make it happen.

Here’s my editorial from the LSJ:
 

Michigan House Speaker Andy Dillon has introduced a new health-care proposal, which he claims would save taxpayers $700 million-$900 million.

I've worked passionately to reform our broken health-care system, and was interested to read what Dillon proposed. I was disappointed to see that his plan was both unrealistic and would create a greater burden for hard-working men and women already tasked to the limit.

Dillon's plan requires the disregard of existing contracts with fire fighters and law enforcement officers, cut benefits for teachers, undermine the right to collectively bargain, do nothing to ease the burden of health care costs on businesses, and won't cover a single uninsured Michigander.

Even more troubling, the way Dillon calculates the plan just doesn't make sense.

Reading Dillon's proposal, the numbers simply don't add up.

To start, on the first page of his health-care plan, he said Michigan faces a $1.7 billion deficit in fiscal year 2010; on page 4, he says that number is $1.3 billion. How can we expect the deficit to be solved when the speaker himself doesn't know how big it is?

To come up with its figures, the plan relies on implausible assumptions and estimates of estimates. On page 8, Dillon asserts that 69 of 83 counties in Michigan represent 50 percent to 75 percent of county health-care costs - all without knowing the numbers for the other 14 counties. Such guesswork is an unsound foundation for any policy.

Central to the proposal is an insistence that economies of scale - the idea that creating a larger buyer will give leverage to reduce costs - will save the government $100 million to $200 million. Certainly, it's true that economies of scale can lower prices - that's how name brand retailers offer lower prices than mom-and-pop stores - but the extent of the savings is overstated. Michigan already pools the insurance of 55,000 state workers, meaning that any additional savings are questionable, at best.

Just as Dillon's math is off-target, so are his attacks on state employees. Severing contracts on a whim is no way to do business. Nor is undercutting the right of workers to collectively bargain.

That criticism is an unfair smear of our educators, using straw man tactics to drum up a war against teachers' benefits. Michigan's teachers deserve better.

The fact of the matter is that public employees - whether a teacher in the classroom, a policeman on his beat, or a construction worker working to repair Interstate 75 - have shared in sacrifices just like every other worker in Michigan. To allege that teachers' health plans are primarily to blame for the budget crisis is blaming the victim.

This isn't real change. It's the same old song with a different beat.

Health-care reform is vital for our state. With 1.3 million uninsured Michiganders, we need to focus on how to enable more, not fewer, people to pay their medical bills.

But Dillon's prescription is one we in Michigan can't afford to fill.