TennCare threatening to devour state budget

Tennessear reported TennCare is too expensive to keep operating in its existing form, consultants with the global consultants McKinsey & Co. concluded in a report released yesterday to the legislature and to the public.

This single payer project is the stalking horse for Hillary Care. Hopefully it's failure in Tennessee will give us a chance of blocking Hillarycare

If its spending is not controlled, the managed-care program will absorb nearly every dollar in new revenue collected between now and 2008 and threaten other state priorities. The most likely scenario is that the program would take $9 of every $10 in new state revenue over that period, according to the report.

And with the first baby boomer retiring, the federal government already has Social Security and Medicare to try to figure out how to fund. We definitely do not need Hillarycare.

TennCare would become the state's biggest single expenditure, surpassing K-12 education and public safety, even though those services affect more Tennesseans than TennCare's 1.3 million enrollees. ''Are they daunting? Absolutely,'' Bredesen, a former health-care executive, said of the figures. ''This is the worst picture I would have imagined. What it means is, absent major changes, there is no money for employee raises. There is no money for education. There is no money for corrections. There is no money for other social services. That is obviously unacceptable.''