To the long list of reasons why state lawmakers should expand BadgerCare and accept the federal funding for that purpose, we can add another.  It’s immensely popular.

On a day when conservative lawmakers were doing exceptionally well across most of the country, a number of progressive ballot measures stood up to that tide and scored very strong victories.  Among those was the advisory referendum in Wisconsin on expanding BadgerCare.

The non-binding referendum on BadgerCare was not a statewide vote; it was on the ballot in 19 Wisconsin counties plus the City of Kenosha. Although those 20 parts of the state have less than half of the Wisconsin voters who came to the polls yesterday, that fact doesn’t make the overwhelming margin of support (73% to 27%) any less impressive.  Consider the following:

• Expanding BadgerCare won handily in every one of those 20 areas; the closest margin was in Clark County where it won by 16 percentage points (58% to 42%)!
• It was not an unrepresentative sample of counties; Walker won in 11 of the 19.
• Even though less than 43% of the people who cast ballots Tuesday voted in the BadgerCare referendum, its margin of victory – more than 470,000 votes – was 3.4 times Governor Walker’s margin (about 137,000 votes).

The strength of support for the referendum Tuesday can be seen in a sample of three dispersed counties where Walker got slightly over 59% of the vote in each, yet he still got less support there than expanding BadgerCare.  In those three counties – Oneida, Outagamie, and St. Croix – BadgerCare expansion won with 69%, 61% and 70% (respectively) of the votes cast.

Despite the fact that expanding BadgerCare has extremely strong support among voters across the state and across the political spectrum, at least two key lawmakers still seem to be firmly opposed – Governor Walker and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.  Although they certainly have the ability to ensure Wisconsin doesn’t expand BadgerCare and doesn’t save about $300 million (in 2015-17) in the process, I don’t see the issue as absolutely settled. The legislative leaders who are opposed to expansion have yet to submit an alternative plan to close a large Medicaid shortfall and probably can’t do so without making deep cuts to BadgerCare and Medicaid.

Unless or until we see state lawmakers offer a better alternative, I think there’s hope that reason can prevail – with the help of the powerful message sent by yesterday’s referendum.

Jon Peacock