Healthy Wisconsin Critic Cost Wisconsin Billions

George Lightbourn, former head budget guru for Gov. Scott McCallum and current pro-corporate shill at the right wing Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, is attacking the $2-billion-saving “Healthy Wisconsin” plan to provide access to affordable and quality health care for all.

George Lightbourn’s central thesis that Medicare and Medicaid were bad ideas is as bankrupt as his previous work with Gov. Scott McCallum to sell off the $6 billion that would have come to the state from the tobacco settlement for pennies on the dollar.

History reminds us that as Gov. McCallum’s top budget aide, Lightbourn’s last major undertaking was to dig us into a historic budget deficit. For the people of Wisconsin, we can breathe easy knowing that at least now his failed economic analysis is only paid for by the pro-corporate forces funding his research, not us taxpayers.

Lightbourn’s assertion that reducing the state’s health care bill by $2 billion, as Healthy Wisconsin does, is financially imprudent, is the same logic that says tax cuts for the rich help working families and more tax breaks for Big Oil will reduce gas prices.

It doesn’t add up.