Recent Developments Bolster New “Top Ten” List of Reasons to Tap Wisconsin’s Share of Medicaid Funding   

As new BadgerCare enrollment figures have become available and we’ve learned more about the state budget bill, it has become even more obvious that our state shouldn’t turn its back on the funding for Medicaid expansions that Wisconsin taxpayers have been contributing to the federal treasury.

That conclusion has been reinforced by the latest data on the rapidly rising number of childless adults in BadgerCare – whose coverage could be financed with federal dollars. It is also reinforced by the testimony at public hearings this week about the adverse effects of budget cuts – cuts that could easily be avoided by drawing on Wisconsin’s share of the funding for Medicaid expansions, which would free up an estimated $345 million in the next budget.

Another factor that reinforces the case for expanding BadgerCare is the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court might rule in a pending case (King v. Burwell) that subsidies for private coverage purchased through the health insurance Marketplace are not authorized in states like Wisconsin that haven’t set up their own Marketplaces. Ending those subsidies would mean that an even larger number of the 60,000 people who lost BadgerCare eligibility in 2014 are at risk of being uninsured.  Expanding BadgerCare and tapping the federal funding would significantly reduce the number of Wisconsinites at risk of losing their access to affordable health insurance. (Read more here about the relevance of that case for Wisconsin.)

That consideration is one of the additions to an updated version of the WCCF’s “Top ten list” of reasons to expand BadgerCare and accept the increased federal funding. It also contains the latest savings estimates from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau and the latest data on the recent surge in BadgerCare enrollment of childless adults.

Our “Top Ten list” focuses on the substantive reasons to capture our state’s share of the funding for Medicaid expansions; it does not include any of the political reasons, such as public sentiment for not leaving money on the table.  However, there is new information on that front as well – in the form of a new public opinion survey conducted March 6th-8th by Public Policy Polling on key health care issues. Those polling results, which were released last week by Citizen Action of Wisconsin, found that the public supports taking the money by a remarkable 31-point margin (58% to 27%). The polling data, which is from a survey of 1,071 Wisconsin voters, can be accessed here.

For me, the substantive merits of a policy choice outweigh political considerations such as public opinion, but put those factors together and it’s clearer than ever that Wisconsin should expand BadgerCare and avoid huge budget cuts by capturing our state’s share of the Medicaid expansion funding.

Jon Peacock