The Wisconsin Hospital Association is coming out against a hospital tax before it's even proposed.
The governor isn't confirming or denying that he will propose such a tax in his budget but he has talked in general terms about how the revenue could be used to cover more people in Wisconsin with health insurance.
What hasn't been said, according to Eric Borgerding at the Hospital Association, is that the cost will be passed on to patients. He says hospital costs will have to go up and that will show up in insurance premiums.
Borgerding says even though revenue from the so-called "sick tax" is intended to be spent on health care, experience in other states shows it doesn't happen that way. He claims revenue from that tax is going straight to the state coffers to pay for other budget priorities.
Borgerding says all you have to do is look at what happened with the nursing home bed tax that was implemented in Wisconsin several years ago. That money, he claims is not being used entirely for nursing home reimbursement but for other things.
