Another Failed “Public Option”

Democrats had controlled the Tennessee state legislature since the Civil War. Their attempt at a state run public heath care option would, in the end, cost Democrats control of both houses of the state legislature, and brand a Republican governor a traitor...

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Democrat Governor Ned McWherter and his Democrat legislature passed the "public option" for Tennessee heath care in 1994, TennCare... Medicaid had already failed, and the federal government under Democrat Bill Clinton, had taken to shifting losses and expenses to the states as a means of cutting losses in the federal budget. States were forced by federal law to offer the coverage, and premiums via taxation went into the federal treasury. But the losses were being shifted to the states in order to cover up a growing river of red ink in the federal Medicaid system. Like many states forced into the same corner by the Fed, Tennessee's Medicaid system was beyond bankrupt, and was threatening the financial health of the entire state budget. Democrats answer to the problem was to create TennCare, intended to expand coverage to Tennesseans while shifting some of the systemic losses back to the Fed.

From a Nashville Business Journal article in 1999 -- "TennCare replaced Tennessee's Medicaid program in 1994 with the promise of bringing free-market, managed care discipline to that runaway government program. Tennessee's business community, nervous about higher taxes to feed Medicaid, was happy. Advocates for the poor were happy, particularly since TennCare opened the door to universal health insurance. Members of the Legislature were happy because TennCare shifted millions of dollars of expenses to the federal government. - The only people not happy were doctors and hospital administrators, since they believed, correctly, that they were being grossly underpaid. Since they were accused of enriching themselves on the misery of the sick and at the expense of taxpayers, no one cared."

Eighteen months after its inception, TennCare was already bankrupting the state budget as a direct result of horrific mismanagement by state legislators, allowing systemic corruption and fraud. Socialism has a simple problem really... People naturally place no value on "free" services. Open a pizza parlor offering "free" pizza next to a pizza joint that charges for its pizza and you can run the "for profit" pizza joint out of business. But how long can the "free" pizza parlor remain in business?

TennCare took effect in 1994. From the NBJ article -- "TennCare provides access to health care for the weakest and most vulnerable Tennesseans. It insures 850,000 people who are classified by the federal government as poor and therefore unable to provide health care for themselves and their families. Another 500,000 recipients of TennCare benefits are supposedly unable to buy insurance in the open market, so they buy it through TennCare. - With one-quarter of Tennessee's population on its rolls, and with that kind of broad support, it seemed TennCare could not fail. -- But it did."

But the article failed to mention that another 300,000 who were not legal residents of Tennessee enrolled in TennCare. Unlike current Obama proposals to cover "illegal immigrants" in the new "public option" offered by DC Democrats, Tennessee attempted to offer coverage only to legal Tennessee residents. Like all "public option" programs, it was designed to fail. And like every government managed program in America, it failed in grand fashion, at great expense to taxpayers. Like all so-called "public options," the system quickly devolved from a progressive idea into systemic fraud and corruption under the watchful eye of elected incompetents, always eager to misuse any taxpayer funded system for the benefit of their partisan political power. Republican Don Sundquist was elected to clean up the mess in 1995. Sundquist ran and won on conservative principles and values of reigning in state spending and infamous corruption in state Democrat leadership, the result of decades of unchallenged power in Tennessee. Tennesseans were indeed seeking "change" from the famed Tennessee Mob mentality of the Democrat Party, namely from Memphis. Republican Governor Sundquist experienced the same problem that every Republican governor since the Civil War had experienced. A Democrat controlled legislature meant a lame duck governor's office anytime a Republican was governor. Every conservative campaign promise immediately ran into road blocks in the Democrat legislature. If Sundquist wanted to get anything accomplished, he would have to "make deals" with the devil. Atop the list of items he would cave on, was ongoing support for the already failing "public option" for health care in Tennessee, known as TennCare. Tennessee has no state income tax. Yet due to increasing budget deficits caused by the Medicaid/TennCare crisis, pressure was mounding for increased tax revenues to cover up the losses created by the "public option" for health care. Despite campaign promises, Sundquist would come to support a proposal for a state income tax offered repeatedly by Democrats in the legislature, as the ONLY means available for saving TennCare and the state budget the program had destroyed. It nearly cost Sundquist re-election and had he not promised to veto any state income tax during his re-election campaign, he would have lost his re-election bid. But immediately following his re-election, Sundquist was once again forced by the Democrat controlled legislature to agree to a state income tax. The Tennessee people revolted in the first anti-tax Tea Parties of the era. They marched on state capitol offices until legislators couldn't even access their offices. Twice during the Sundquist era, Democrats tried to force a state income tax into law and twice the Tennessee people locked down the state house until Democrats were forced to walk away from the idea. Sundquist left office under a cloud of disgust and disdain, for even attempting to go along with Democrats on the matter. Without the passage of a state income tax, TennCare was doomed to failure.

From the NBJ article of 1999 -- "Six years later, there's plenty of blame to go around for TennCare's failure. -- Let's start with the idea behind the program. It saved money for the state by shifting costs to the federal government. That's a notion only a bureaucrat could love, since all of the government's money comes from one place -- taxpayers. In any case, that cost shift was only temporary. Each year, the state has to pay for a greater share. Now TennCare has become an IOU signed by every taxpayer in Tennessee." "Blame any TennCare managed care organization that paid its bills slowly, or not at all, and was unresponsive to the scared, sick and poor people it insured."

It was a complete utter disaster... TennCare was sold as a Pay-to-Play "public option" that would provide much needed "competition" with private health insurers, whom leftist Democrats had successfully demonized as "greedy" thugs and thieves only interested in turning a profit for their equally greedy shareholders. In the end, the final chapter was written...

"Then blame the entitlement industry that has grown up around TennCare like weeds choking a garden. These strident advocates believe they have the right to reach into our pockets and take as much money as they need to turn TennCare into what they want it to be -- universal insurance -- instead of what it is supposed to be -- a safety net." "All of this leads us to the final bit of blame -- the administration of Gov. Don Sundquist. His administration has been more interested in covering up TennCare's problems than in solving them. That's why we taxpayers paid to insure thousands of dead people. Administration officials say they may have wasted millions of dollars by not properly auditing TennCare. But they aren't sure, so it isn't fair to criticize them." "Just be quiet and pay the income tax that will probably be proposed, again, in January. The administration has decided it's easier to raise taxes than to fix TennCare."

Republican Governor Don Sundquist would be forever labeled a traitor in Tennessee for his acquiescence to Democrats who created and bankrupted TennCare, along with the state budget. There are repeated examples of just how bad the idea of government run health care can be. The much talked about Romney-Care in Taxachusetts was a glowing example of success, until it failed. Canada is often used as a wonderful example of success in socialized medicine. Canada is trying to dump their system before the country bellies up and replace it with "private health care" like America has... Still, Obama & Co. claim that we MUST pass a "public option" form of health care reform. Their case for passing such a program is the fact that programs that they previously put in place to manage such challenges at the federal level, have already gone bankrupt. Republicans in congress are being accused of "stonewalling" on the "public option" for political purposes. Yet ALL evidence demonstrates that they have a much better reason for stonewalling on any "public option" - namely, countless examples of failed "public" health programs across the country and around the globe. Taxpayers taking to the streets at town hall meetings across the land, have been demonized by the left, labeled "right-wing extremists" or "domestic terrorists" or "racists," and even "Nazis" according to the House Speaker, all on the basis that they oppose the giant leap into unbridled socialism taking place under an administration which continues to ignore the screaming voice of the majority, in pursuit of their own political power. The left's abuse of power within the systems they allegedly create for the "general welfare" of taxpayers has resulted in an historic level of distrust and disdain for elected officials and the idiot ideas they attempt to shovel down American throats. Approval ratings for both President Obama and his leftist Democrat congress are at an all-time low. Public outcries for REAL government reform are at an all-time high. 59% of Americans now even want to opt out of Social Security. Yet another federal program run into the ground via a criminal level of corruption in the halls of congress. A very REAL "public option" is finally underway. Fed up with the constant assault on American taxpayers by leftist elitists in Washington DC, the "public" is ready to offer its own "option" for reform. It's called a general house cleaning... Before we have to abolish the federal government and start all over again, the people (public) is going to have to alter the way government thinks in this country. The Wilsonian BIG GOVERNMENT "Raw Deal" era of FDR and Democratic Socialists convinced that BIGGER GOVERNMENT is the ONLY answer to every problem, has ended. The people are awake now and they are stepping up "public" efforts to force elected employees of the taxpayer, to follow the will of the vast majority of Americans who still love freedom more than any false promise of free-stuff. The "public" can see the writing on the wall now. They missed it during the last two election cycles, but thanks to Obama and Pelosi, the Democratic Socialist agenda of America's left is in clear focus today. Not to worry... The "public" is coming up with its own "option" now! The people need look no further than Tennessee's TennCare debacle to see the future of ObamaCare. They now realize that Washington DC needs the leadership of experienced business men and women with a track record of making things work on a budget, instead of out-of-work ambulance chasers become law-makers. Out with the lawyers who only know how to spend, and in with the business people who know how to meet payroll on budget, without working around the clock to control every thought and right of the individuals they work for.... Taxpayers have a "public option" of their own! We'll look out for ourselves, thank you very much. Leftists' efforts to look out for themselves are just too expensive! Twenty percent of Americans clearly want socialism now. But the other eighty percent who slept through the last two election campaigns assuming that it didn't matter who won, are awake and they have a better plan! The first of many in that plan A few are already doing what the people elected them to do The American people must get behind people willing to fight for them, and work around the clock to shut down all others. There is NO room for party politics in America today. If you stand for freedom and liberty, and the principles and values enumerated so well in all of our founding documents, then you are a "right-wing extremist" today, whether you like the title or not. If you stand opposed to these principles and values and instead seek to support Obamanations effort to "change" America into a One World society of federal dependents, you are the enemy that Americans should be most concerned with at present. I can't state it any plainer than that! Millions of Americans get it now, and that's what MUST happen to affect the correct "public option" here...