McCormick vs. Gard, again

A while back, you may remember, there was a bit of a dust-up in GOPland around the race to replace Mark Green in Wisconsin's 8th CD. I posted excerpts of a missive from an 8th-CD Republican disturbed first at the way John Gard (R-Peshtigo Sun Prairie) seemed to be getting deferential treatment when official GOP policy is not to play favorites in a primary, and second at the way Gard has been running the Assembly to rack up points with big contributors and sell out the little people. There was some follow-up around the Cheddarsphere, and, from where I sat, things got quiet for a while.

This week, though, Sadie Says that the fight between Mean Mr. Gard and the more moderate and likeable State Rep. terry McCormick is going to get uglier before it gets better:

State Representative Terri McCormick (R-Appleton) called for Speaker John Gard and Joint Finance Co-Chair Dean Kaufert to immediately release the 2005 Health Care Reform Package from committee, urging a public hearing on this critical issue.

Assembly Bills 515-519 are currently collecting dust in the Joint Finance Committee when they could be helping local governments provide responsible property tax relief, said McCormick. We cannot expect local governments to freeze property taxes unless we provide them with the tools they need to address the fastest rising expense in their budgets.

The McCormick plan for health care reform would curb health insurance costs by allowing local governments to competitively bid for health insurance plans. A January report by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute estimated that introducing free market principles and transparency into the bargaining process would save the state of Wisconsin a minimum of $100 million. A similar plan for prescription drugs modeled after McCormick's proposal produced a $25 million savings in the first year alone.

You can search my archives: As long as I have been talking about what a bad idea any kind of "freeze" is--be it TABOR or the other freezes that get floated--I have used health care as my primary counter-argument. It is just stupid to expect governments to maintain anything close to the current level of service if the costs of health care continue to outpace inflation (or personal income growth) by 400 or 500%. Either we end up with a public sector with no health care coverage or we end up with bare-bones services provided by a decimated workforce. Yes, yes, I know the wingnut conservatives would be happy to see Wisconsin's public sector shrivel to the point where they could drown it in a bathtub, but the vast majority of Wisconsin's voters, students, parents, residents, and taxpayers do not.

I haven't had the chance yet to investigate the bills McCormick wants released, but I appreciate the effort and I can tell both that her heart is in the right place and that she is smart enough to anticipate the disaster a tax freeze would mean without concurrent controls on the costs of health care.

On the other hand, it also does my heart good to know that the Republican primary in a Dem-winnable district like the 8th could be messy. And if Frank Lasee gets in? All bets would be off on the bloodiness.

Of course, I would hate to see Gard getting soft, too . . .