By Jon Peacock, Wisconsin Coalition on Children and Families
Sooner or later, Wisconsin is going to expand its Medicaid coverage, known as “BadgerCare,” to include all adults up to 138% of the federal poverty level (FPL). The strong public support for expanding coverage and the substantial financial benefits of accepting increased federal funding will eventually outweigh the ideological resistance.
The budget angle is particularly important in Wisconsin now because state lawmakers are struggling to close a very large deficit, and our state has more to gain financially by expanding Medicaid than any of the 20 other “non-expansion” states. The following bar graph, which comes from a report by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, vividly illustrates the potential budget benefit in Wisconsin.
In contrast to the other states that aren’t taking advantage of the enhanced Medicaid funding, Wisconsin currently covers all adults below the poverty level. Beginning in April 2014, our state expanded BadgerCare to include all childless adults up to the poverty level, but lawmakers partially offset the cost increase by cutting in half the previous eligibility ceiling for parents – from 200% of FPL down to 100%. Since that time, Wisconsin has added more than 140,000 childless adults to BadgerCare, while about 60,000 parents above the poverty level lost their coverage.
The surge in enrollment of childless adults, coupled with large tax cuts enacted over the past two years, created a substantial budget deficit. Governor Walker’s proposed 2015-17 budget bill would close the deficit by making deep cuts in K-12 and higher education, environmental protection, and many other programs. In addition, the proposed budget would direct the Department of Health Services to seek federal approval to change BadgerCare for childless adults by establishing a 4-year time limit, imposing premiums for all participants, and requiring drug screening.
We have been working with other advocates to educate legislators and the general public about the drawbacks of the changes the Governor has proposed and the advantages of expanding BadgerCare. Part of our strategy has been the development of an alternative budget that would avoid the deep budget cuts, without raising state taxes.
The key to our “Better Choices Budget” is expanding BadgerCare to 138% of FPL and accepting the enhanced Medicaid funding. That would cover at least 80,000 more adults, yet would yield a net savings of about $360 million during the 2015-17 budget period. In addition, our plan would free up about $430 million more by capping, rather than increasing, two ineffective tax breaks.
Over the past several weeks, 30 different state and local organizations have endorsed our alternative budget blueprint and have been working with us to draw attention to that plan. You can find the list of endorsing organizations and other material on our Better Choices webpage.
Although we don’t expect to significantly change the pending budget bill, we see signs of progress in educating the public that legislators can’t legitimately say that there aren’t any alternatives to the proposed budget cuts. It is now much more widely understood that expanding BadgerCare would enable the state to save $360 million, even as we cover far more parents and childless adults.
A former co-worker had a message on her screensaver that read “there are no defeats, only long-term campaigns.” Expanding BadgerCare to 138% of the poverty level is such a campaign, and we’re confident of ultimately succeeding.
