Minnesota: the liberal dreamland

It isn’t often that one political side gets to really prove that they’re right. To have the unmitigated proof. The smoking gun. To really rub it in the other side’s face: we’re right, and you’re wrong.

Don’t look now, Wisconsin liberals, but Minnesota may be giving you a chance to do just that.

They're taking over the health care business there.

Two bipartisan panels that Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Legislature formed to find the antidote to Minnesota's rapidly accelerating health care costs are planning to propose drastic changes to the state's health care system that include spreading insurance to all by 2011.

Now, the two panels haven’t quite finalized their reports yet – they’re supposed to do that sometime this month – but we can still draw a few conclusions.

Not that you need a secret decoder ring or anything. Universal coverage, improved care, affordable costs. That’s what they – like every liberal worth the description – are calling for. Price tag: an estimated $700 million.

No problem, says Sen. Linda Berglin (DFL-Minneapolis):

“We don't need to spend more money on health care,” she said. “There's enough waste from unnecessary treatments, inefficient care and in some cases inflated prices to do what we need to do.”

Just so we all understand what the good Senator means:

“Unnecessary treatments” means somebody other than your doctor decides what you need and what you don’t. A bureaucrat in every examining room!

“Inefficient care” means, largely, the same thing, with the added spice of bureaucratic monitoring of medical activity.

And, of course, “inflated prices” means somebody will decide, subjectively, how much everything should cost.

Plus, they plan to go hard after things like smoking, obesity, alcohol and drug abuse. Help us – or, rather help Minnesotans – help themselves.

A government finger here, a government finger there. Government fingers everywhere.

Attentive and regular readers will remember a recent column in this space regarding the Free State Project – the movement to move enough libertarian-minded citizens to New Hampshire that they can effectively (and legally) take over the government there.

In that column, I suggested a slightly different version: move all of our liberals to Minnesota, where they can enact whatever policies they see fit; and all of Minnesota’s conservatives here, where we’ll do the same.

Wait ten years. Compare results.

Obviously, that isn’t going to happen. We conservatives may mock the intelligence of our liberal friends and rightly so, but even liberals know better than to trade Wisconsin for Minnesota.

Luckily, Minnesota is offering us a chance to test this out. Liberals, “progressives,” You Who Care About the Poor: you’ll have a chance in just a few years to show us all how right you were.

Of course, there’s a difference between knowing what you want, and making it happen. There’s a political process. The Minnesota Legislature has to write these recommendations into law. Pass them. The Governor will have to sign them.

But there again, Wisconsin liberals, luck shines upon you! Minnesota’s version of the Democratic Party has huge legislative majorities: 85-48 in the House, and 45-22 in the Senate.

Those are big majorities. Almost veto-proof majorities. Those are majorities that ought to get a progressive agenda through.

Sure, the Governor is a Republican, thus in the pocket of Big Business, but he sees the writing on the wall. The biggest danger facing progressive change in Minnesota now is that every pigeon-holed interest group will push and pull and tug and influence until the final bill has more exceptions and loopholes and add-ons than the federal tax code.

I’ve heard you say it, liberal Wisconsin: universal coverage is simple, and easy, and within our reach! Don’t let Minnesota screw up this chance they so obviously have.

Get on those phones, send in those checks. Show your support now! You’re just a few short years away from sitting back, popping a beer, hiding your laughter behind your hand (or not) while we, conservatives, beaten and subdued, shovel another big hunk of crow down our submissive throats.

When Minnesota, that beacon of Midwestern light, is bursting at the seams with the people who’ve come to take part in the liberal dream: free health care for all!

Better them than us.

Tips of the hat to Patrick McIlheran and the Star-Tribune's Katherine Kersten.