One idea to prevent confusion

Letter to the Business Journal:

Avoid confusion on health care proposals

Your Aug. 5 edition carried a Guest Comment by state Rep. Jon Richards on the Wisconsin Health Plan. This plan was developed by David Riemer, former budget director for Gov. Jim Doyle, and supported by Richards and Rep. Curt Gielow. Your headline was "Wisconsin Health Care Plan has bipartisan support."

The problem here is that "Wisconsin Health Care Plan" is the title used for some three years for the comprehensive plan being developed by the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO and a number of major corporations in Wisconsin -- a plan quite different from the one described in the Richards' op-ed.

While the Riemer/Richards/Gielow proposal has a number of excellent components (some quite similar to elements of our plan), we feel our plan -- to be publicly proposed later this fall -- will be much simpler and less expensive. We expect it also will have significant bi-partisan support.

--David Newby, President, Wisconsin State AFL-CIO

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Hey, here's an idea. Since the AFL-CIO plan hasn't been publicly proposed yet, how about calling it something else? Or is that too obvious?