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Burri: Just shut up and hand over your wallet
Dave Zweifel makes me wish I was a salesman. Or an auto mechanic, maybe.
Why? Because Zweifel, editor of the Capital Times, doesn’t mind when things cost a lot more than promised.
We all know the story: you buy something – an airline ticket, maybe – expecting it to cost X. But then, as it turns out, it costs more. Added fees, maybe, or taxes, or a bait-and-switch. Whatever. The mechanic says it’ll cost this much to fix your car, but when the time comes, the bill says it’s THIS MUCH.
Hey, there was more to fix than we thought. It took longer. That’s just how it is.
Most of us get mad about stuff like that. Not Zweifel. If it costs more, it costs more, and we should just shut up and pay.
What am I talking about? Let me explain.
During the last budget debate, Governor Doyle proposed an expansion of BadgerCare – the Medicaid-like program aimed at insuring kids and their parents.
The new program, BadgerCare Plus, would enroll about 26,000 additional people by 2009, and would be cost-neutral. Or so the Legislature was told. Under these conditions, a bipartisan majority passed BadgerCare Plus.
Fast forward to now: the Department of Health Services actually enrolled over 46,000 people right away. Now the number is over 84,000, and the program is $25 million over budget – even though they told the Legislature it wouldn’t cost a penny.
Legislative leaders are ticked. Zweifel thinks they’re ridiculous.
Members of the same political party that came up with the original $700 billion plan, in order to save Wall Street and the corporate financial giants from themselves, reacted with horror that help for poor kids and their families is costing more than budgeted.
…What's particularly galling to many Americans is that there never is any money for programs that could alleviate some of the suffering and inequity in our society…we're constantly told we don't have the money to fix things. Yet, when it comes to paying the costs of invading a foreign country or bailing out millionaire barons who have messed up playing fast and loose with other folks' bank accounts, somehow the money can be miraculously found. I should point out that a lot of conservatives agree with Zweifel on the bailout. I could also point out: we’ve got BadgerCare, BadgerCare Plus, the HIRSP program, Family Care, Senior Care, and Wisconsin continues to have one of the most generous Medicaid programs in the nation, so don’t tell me we don’t “help poor kids and their families.”
But that’s entirely beside the point. The raw amounts aren’t the problem. It’s not what the money is being spent on. It’s not whether or not we think we should spend more, or think we’re spending way too much.
The point is: we agreed to a certain amount, and now you’re telling us it’s more. And you’re telling us that it’s more because you simply decided, all on your own, to do more than the Legislature agreed to.
That, you see, is what happened to BadgerCare Plus. They enrolled more people than they said, and they did so consciously. Then they handed us a $25 million bill.
Having taken his car in for a brake adjustment, the mechanic replaced his front axle and differential, and then handed Zweifel the bill.
And Zweifel will pay it, because that’s okay with him.
Or, heck, if Zweifel had his way, we wouldn’t even see a bill. We wouldn’t have to: the mechanic would already have our wallets.
Lance Burri is a contributor to the Badger Blog Alliance and occasionally blogs at his own site as well. 
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