Gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Wis., unveiled a health-care plan Monday that seeks to stabilize costs and provide insurance to more Wisconsin families.

Green announced the proposal at two events hosted by businesses that, according to Green's campaign spokesperson Luke Punzenberger, have made efforts to provide more affordable, higher-quality health care for employees. Green gave separate announcements of his proposal at Highview Custom Fabricating in Oneida, and at Tableau, LLC in Waukesha highlighting the drop in employer-sponsored health care over the past five years — from 76 percent to 69 percent.

"Mark Green's plan is consumer-driven and would give individuals more ownership over their health-care plan, and would also bring the cost of health care down as a whole," Punzenberger said.

Among other things, the plan outlines tax deductions for long-term care insurance, requirements for health-care providers to publish prices and estimates for the cost of medical procedures and also an expansion of Health Savings Accounts.

"A proposal passed the state Legislature that would make contributions to Health Savings Accounts tax deductible, which is how it is at the federal level," Punzenberger said. "But [Democratic Gov. Jim] Doyle vetoed it."

An HSA is a tax-advantaged medical savings account available to taxpayers throughout the United States. The funds can be withdrawn tax-free for medical expenses such as deductibles, co-insurance, dental and vision care and many other items not covered under particular health-insurance plans.

Yet Doyle's campaign said the governor vetoed the bill because it was too expensive and did not benefit the state as a whole.

"The governor has always said that HSAs are something he would consider as part of a broader health-insurance package," said Anne Lupardus, press secretary for Doyle's campaign. "But HSAs would only help those who take advantage of them — which is less than one percent of the population — and they don't provide insurance to anyone that doesn't have it now."

Lupardus added Green's plan does not do anything to help seniors to afford prescription drugs, to help middle class or working families to lower health-care costs or to provide insurance for children who are currently uninsured.

But another part of Green's plan includes "health opportunity accounts," which are intended for more than 400,000 families and children on Medicaid.

"Mark Green supports extending health care to Wisconsin's children, especially the uninsured," Punzenberger said. "But he believes that we should be providing that health care through the private sector and not through the expansion of government health-care programs."

According to Doyle in his 2006 State of the State Address, 50 percent of health-care costs are incurred by 5 percent of the population. To counter this development, Doyle proposed such programs as Healthy Wisconsin — a plan to provide high-cost catastrophe coverage for small businesses to lower health-care premiums up to 30 percent — and BadgerCare Plus, which is intended to help insure every child in Wisconsin.

Punzenberger said Green's proposal is also intended to relieve healthcare concerns for all Wisconsin residents.

"Mark Green's proposal is focused on providing higher-quality, more-affordable health care to Wisconsinites, with some geared to seniors and a big chunk to our businesses and employees,"
Punzenberger said. "But better health care would be provided across the board."