As we noted in yesterday’s blog post, the Legislative Audit Bureau issued a comprehensive audit of the Medical Assistance (MA) program Tuesday. The LAB audit recommends that DHS should report to the Legislature’s Joint Audit Committee by next July on the department’s efforts to address the following seven issue areas raised by the...
Today, the Legislative Audit Bureau released their 100+ page report on Wisconsin’s Medical Assistance (MA) programs, including BadgerCare Plus, Medicaid, and long-term care programs. The economic downturn, as well as eligibility expansions, has increased the number of MA recipients to 1.2 million in January 2011 – boosting expenditures...
We are all familiar with the phrase “big things come in small packages.” For some, a specific provision in the health care reform law is just that. In a blog post on Wednesday, we examined the impact of one of the better know parts of the health care reform law, which has enabled 2.5 million young adults to be included on their parents’...
The US Supreme Court has agreed to take up two new cases in which young juveniles (age 14) were involved in crimes that led to a life without parole sentence. Recall that through prior cases (Graham v. Florida, Roper v. Simmons) the court has ruled that offenders under the age of 18 cannot be executed and that youth under 18 in...
New data released today shows that 2.5 million more young adults are covered by health insurance due to health care reform, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Traditionally, young adults have been the population least likely to have health insurance. To address this, the ACA ensured starting in September 2010, that all young adults are able...
Health care advocates in the Save BadgerCare Coalition agree with the Department of Health Services (DHS) on at least one thing – that the BadgerCare changes proposed by DHS can’t be made without a waiver of the “maintenance of effort” (MOE) requirements of the federal health care reform law. Those provisions of the Affordable Care Act...
W-2 Costs Far Less than Article StatesThe Journal Sentinel ran a PolitiFact column Sunday on the subject of Tommy Thompson’s statement on December 1 (while announcing his candidacy for the U.S. Senate) that while he was governor, "we ended welfare." For what it’s worth the Journal Sentinel gave that statement a rating of “mostly true,”...
A federal official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced today that the agency probably won’t be able to act as quickly as the Walker Administration had hoped on a long and complicated waiver request that would allow the state to make sweeping changes to BadgerCare. However, the letter from CMS to Secretary...
Continued Debate over a Slight OCI Technical Change Is Telling Although officials in the Walker Administration have said on a number of occasions that they plan to implement the Health Insurance Exchanges required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), we still haven’t seen the Exchange legislation that they said we could expect in the fall....
What may sound like a wonky insurance industry term is poised to have a real impact on health care consumers through the health care reform law. Recent regulations and developments around implementation of the medical loss ratio (MLR) standards have been in the news both nationally and in Wisconsin in recent weeks and months. The...
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