Last Monday's Wall Street Journal contained an editorial describing Illinois' recent debacle with 'universal' health care.
Essentially, Governor "Blowdryavitch," as he is known in the state, attempted to push through a $7.6B tax increase, exclusively on businesses, to pay for health care.
A word to the wise liberals pre-2008. It backfired. So badly that, before the end of the story, Blagojevich was repudiating his own plan!
Along the way, the Illinois Democratic House Speaker, Madigan, the Lieutenant Governor, Quinn, and Chicago's Mayor, Dick Daley, all refused to support it. In the end, the legistlators nixed it because they realize that they have to go back to these businessmen for campaign funds. A law like this could give the Illinois legislature, or Governor's mansion (empty now, anyway..but that's for another post) back to the GOP.
To quote Daley,
"To describe every major CEO in Illinois as fat cats is a mistake...They don't have to be here. They can go to Wisconsin. They can go to Indiana. They can go to India. They can go to China. So if you want to beat up businesses, go beat 'em up, and when they leave, just wave to 'em and they're going to wave back to you."
Even Jesse Jackson went on record as preferring to keep jobs in the state to having health care without a way to pay for it.
John Edwards, of course, wants the equivalent of the Illinois plan nationally. Obama Bim Baden is curiously silent on the Illinois debacle. So is Hillary, who also occasionally claims the state as her 'home.'
Is it the liberal health care canary in the coal mine?
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