LANDER - A Wyoming Democrat is challenging a two-term Republican incumbent for the state Senate this year - in the middle of conservative country - hanging his hat on an idea not commonly championed by Cowboy State politicians:

He believes Wyoming should establish a single-payer universal health care system for its residents. And he says it will be cheaper, more efficient and more effective for tax payers than private insurance is.

His Republican opponent, however, says the proposal would be a big-government, "socialistic" plan that would be hugely expensive and almost certainly unsustainable.

Democrat Jason Wright is challenging incumbent Republican Senator Jim Anderson to represent Senate District 2, which includes Converse and Platte Counties in eastern Wyoming.

Anderson, 65, is a retired teacher from Glenrock who served two terms in the state House before being elected and re-elected to the Senate.

Wright, 27, of Douglas, is a Network Administrator at Memorial Hospital of Converse County, with a degree in information technology from Weber State University.

Wright says that Wyoming already offers universal health care to its residents, but in a remarkably inefficient way. And that inefficiency helps make health insurance premiums more expensive for everybody:

"Almost one-fifth of the people in this state, almost 100,000 people, are without health care coverage, and 12,000 of those are children," Wright said. "Anyone that has an emergency that needs health care - or even if it's not an emergency - can walk into any (emergency room) in the state. The problem is, getting that health care in the ER is so much more expensive than addressing the problem through regular family doctors."

Hospitals in the state lose an average $85 million a year providing health care to people who can't or won't pay for it, and these costs are passed on to the insured patients, Wright said, citing Wyoming Healthcare Commission figures.

"Fifteen to 20 percent of our overall health care premiums in Wyoming go to a hidden tax in order to pay for uninsured people to get uncompensated health care," he said. "And of those that use the ER for their primary mode of care, the problem has generally gotten to the point where they have no other choice than to go to the ER. Instead of preventative health care, we have reactive health care."

Instead of paying health care premiums, Wright argues, Wyomingites should pay a health care tax, which he says would be less expensive than the premiums.

Anderson, however, said he believes Wright's plan would be a bad idea, and would require an additional tax, probably an income tax, to make the multi-billion dollar program go.

"We could not afford to do that on a sustained basis," Anderson said. "Insurance premiums have increased from 10 to 15 percent every year. So take that figure and ask the people of Wyoming to sustain that. Looking into the future, looking at the nature of Wyoming's boom and bust economy, it's just not sustainable. It's too dangerous for us to assume the boom is going to last forever."

It comes down to a fundamental difference in philosophy, Anderson argued: He believes the problems with the health care system can and should be solved in the private sector.

"What we need to do is leave that to the private sector," Anderson said. "Do everything we can to bring down health care costs and provide good jobs with good benefits, so people can be self-sustained through the private sector."

Wright, however, argued leaving health care to the private sector is a bad deal for Wyoming residents.

"If we get rid of private insurance companies, we get rid of the motivation for profit, which is really just an added expense passed on to us as insurance premium payers," Wright said. "We'll create a much more streamlined, efficient health care system where everything we pay in, in some way comes back to us in health care."

If the state were the insurer, it would create an insurance pool large enough to lower individual "premiums," in general, he said.

"I'm not talking about socialized medicine, the state wouldn't hire doctors or get into the business of providing health care. The state would be the insurer," Wright said.

Anderson said he agrees there are great inefficiencies in the current system that need to be dealt with, but a lot of the heavy lifting will need to be done at the national level. In the meantime, there are actions that can be taken by the Wyoming Legislature to help residents take advantage of market forces, he said.

"There are a number of things we can do in terms of efficiency and scales of economy that we need to examine," Anderson said. "We need to look at things like helping smaller employers to participate in larger groups, and we also need to look at wellness programs where people take more responsibility for their health."

Anderson wants to continue to work with the state Legislature to help self-employed workers, small companies and small groups participate in large-group plans, he said, so they, too, can be beneficiaries of large-group rates.

Contact reporter Chris Merrill at (307) 267-6722 or chris.merrill@trib.com

BIO BOX

Senate District 2 - covering Converse and Platte counties

Jim Anderson

Party: Republican

Age: 65

Home: Glenrock

Occupation: Retired teacher

Education: Bachelor's in education, Chadron State College; graduate work, University of Wyoming

Family: Married, two children, five grandchildren

Political experience: Served four years in the state House of Representatives, eight years in the state Senate.

Jason "Jay" Wright

Party: Democrat

Age: 27

Home: Douglas

Occupation: Network Administrator at Memorial Hospital of Converse County

Education: Bachelor's of science in information technology, Weber State University

Family: Single

Political experience: None