The Knoxville News Sentinel reports today that the Tennessee Senate, led by goobernatorial candidate Jim Bryson, has effectively killed Gov. Bredesen's Cover Tennessee health insurance program.

Bryson's amendment would make insurance companies bear all the risk. Which raises the question, how is this different from what we have now? They can't write affordable policies for certain segments of the population without some form of state subsidy. There's no incentive for them to lose money and no state law requiring them to write individual policies. In this regard, Bredesen's plan is at least a step in the right direction.

Bredesen's plan may seem like too little too late for the 200,000 or so people who lost TennCare coverage, including thousands of unemployed and underemployed who won't be covered under the new plan. But it's certainly better than nothing at all, and it's voluntary.

So why mess with it? Politics. That's why.

Bryson is running against Governor Bredesen. He says "there are gifts I have in the area of business and leading people" and feels that he's been "called" to the run for Governor. (Sounds familiar, eh?)

He says he has a "clear mandate to protect our values and pocket book." He's running around making a lot of noise about capping the budget and returning the current state surplus to taxpayers, without acknowledging Bredesen's fiscal management that produced the surplus.

In other words, he's for cutting off the oxygen of social programs and keeping Tennessee at the bottom in health care and education and tops in roads and corporate welfare at the expense of the sick, the poor, and working people. He says he is a Christian. Maybe he slept through Sunday School when they talked about "the least among us"?

Now he's flexing his newfound muscle in the Tennessee Senate to derail any sort of progress on health care reform without offering any vision or plan of his own. Bryson also supports including medical malpractice limits (i.e. "tort reform") into the Cover Tennessee health insurance program. Republicans never seem to pass up an opportunity to hijack progressive legislation for the benefit of special interests who really run our government. If that's what you want for Tennessee, Bryson's your man.

It's hard to imagine someone so out of touch with the reality Tennessee working people face every day. But, he represents Williamson County, which is 92% white and where 58% of the population has some education beyond high school and where the median income is $75,000 and $350K ranchers are "starter homes". I guess the folks in Franklin have good jobs and plenty of health insurance, so it's no big deal to them.

At any rate, all of this is nothing more than a political stunt by Bryson to portray himself as a tough guy who will stand up for the oppressed no-tax crowd and the 30% dead enders. Sadly, this has been effective for Tennessee Republicans in the past, and some Democrats who act like Republicans. Maybe this time, though, voters will see for themselves how this approach is working out at the national level, and think twice about planting it in their own back yard.