FROM THE APPLETON P-C CEO'S WORRIED ABOUT HEALTH CARE COSTS

Editorial: State manufacturing CEOs worried about health care, too
Need another indicator of how important rising health care costs are? Listen to CEOs of Wisconsin manufacturing businesses.

Eighty-four of them responded to a survey by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, an industry lobbying group, about their economic outlook heading into the second half of 2006. When asked, "What is the top business concern facing your company?" the top response was health care costs.

It was No. 1 by a pretty wide margin, too — 35 percent, compared to competition, which got the second-highest response, at 16 percent. After that, it was labor shortage (12 percent), energy (10 percent), regulation (9 percent), economic slowdown (9 percent), taxes (6 percent), other (2 percent) and lawsuit abuse (1 percent).

Remember, this is a sector of Wisconsin business that has taken a lot of hits in recent years. It faces some pretty tough challenges in the areas of competition and economics, in particular. Yet health care costs were overwhelmingly the biggest concern.

In a survey the WMC took last year, when top executives were asked how they planned to deal with increased health care costs, 85 percent said they were increasing the amount employees had to contribute and 29 percent said they were decreasing benefits (they were allowed to choose more than one answer).

So we have state businesses highly concerned about health care costs that think they have to pass those cost increases on to their employees.

It's a problem that affects businesses and employees. These survey results only confirm that. Yet what's being done to address it?
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(My first response, the Wisconsin State Legislature should pass the Wisconsin Health Care Partnership Act (SB 698) similiar to the plan put together by AFL-CIO for which the Fond du Lac and Winnebago County county boards passed resolutions urging such a plan be passed and implemented. )