Learning from State Experiments in Government-Run Health Care

Marguerite Bowling / June 10, 2009

U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn issued a warning to her Senate counterparts who are introducing massive health reform bills this week: Learn from Tennessee’s experiment into “nationalized” health care.

“All approaches for a nationalized health care system simply don’t work, and we saw this with TennCare,” Blackburn said this week during a discussion on the future of employer-based health coverage at The Heritage Foundation.

In 1995, the state implemented TennCare, a health program modeled after Medicaid. While it covered more uninsured adults, the budget-busting program grew at a 1.5-percent annual rate, with costs skyrocketing from $2.5 billion in 1995 to $8 billion by 2004, Blackburn said.

“This program started to consume every new dollar that was generated in the state,” (more…)