Two consumer advocacy groups issued a press release this afternoon calling Insurance Commissioner Ted Nickel’s newly identified membership of the health insurance exchange work groups “unacceptable.” Under the Affordable Care Act, states are required to establish health insurance exchanges as an important tool for consumers of all...
The Republican Governors Association (RGA) released a report Tuesday (Aug. 30) detailing 31 recommendations for loosening federal Medicaid standards, in order to give states far more autonomy in determining who is eligible and what they are eligible for. The report, titled A New Medicaid: A Flexible, Innovative and Accountable Future,...
How do Wisconsin's schools compare to those in other states? A new Wisconsin Budget Project analysis asks this question, and finds that Wisconsin, once a national leader in educational performance, now ranks close to the national average in many measures of support for education.Here's an excerpt from the analysis: Wisconsin schools...
Just read a very interesting and provocative letter from Leonard Witt of the Center for Sustainable Journalism to the CEO of Disney related to the inconsistency between the Disney vision and the latest season of Beyond Scared Straight showing on the A&E Network, owned in large part (one-third) by Disney. In his letter, Mr. Witt points...
The paychecks that public employees get today will be quite a bit smaller than the ones they’ve gotten in the past. That’s because this is the first paycheck that takes into account a provision in the budget repair bill that requires public employees to pay more for their fringe benefits.Beginning teachers, janitors, workers in school,...
Census Bureau data on population trends indicates that by midcentury, people of color will be in the majority. Interestingly, a new opinion survey by Colorlines.com, finds that most people are ambivalent about this demographic shift. However, the research by the Applied Research Center (Colorline’s publisher) did find that among those...
The Department of Children and Families just released an operations memo dated 8/11/11 on the subject "Authorizations to Licensed Family Providers to be Attendance Based Only". "Attendance Based" means payment is based solely on hours attended, unlike private child care, Head Start, and public and choice schools, where everything is...
Many of us have frustratingly tried to decide which insurance plan to choose – and it’s like comparing apples to bananas to oranges, all in a foreign language. Thankfully, a preliminary federal rule announced on August 17 by the Department of Health and Human Services – implementing part of the health care reform law – will ensure that...
Back by Popular Demand Shortly after BadgerCare Plus began in 2008, I wrote a paper providing a detailed description of the income eligibility criteria, what people are eligible for, and how to calculate the premiums for families of different sizes and incomes. We recently got a couple of requests for an updated version of that report,...
Raging debates about reducing the federal deficit, as well as state spending, have reiterated a common point – health care costs are too high. Medicare and Medicaid make up about 23 percent of federal spending, and their costs are growing faster than the overall economy. Because of this, the new "super committee" will likely be looking...
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