An article in today’s Wisconsin State Journal notes that enrollment in the new program for childless adults within BadgerCare Plus is exceeding the state’s projections. The article states that DHS Secretary Karen Timberlake has indicated that they may have to turn to waiting lists in order to keep the program on budget. According to the article, 26,000 childless adults have already enrolled in the BC+ Core Plan since its July launch, a pace that would quickly result in enrollment growing beyond the target of 41,000 participants by next July. One obvious culprit is the sagging economy, which has seen thousands of individuals lose their health insurance coverage along with their jobs. WCCF’s Jon Peacock is quoted as saying that we knew there was a big unmet demand for health care among uninsured adults, but that the state’s notions about the magnitude of that unmet demand undershot the mark. The BC+ Core Plan is helping plug the largest hole in Wisconsin’s health care safety net, as we seek to finish the job of insuring everybody in the state. Because it allows otherwise uninsured adults to seek treatment for health problems before they become severe–and therefore much more expensive to treat–the program, while costly, is a good investment of public resources. For that reason, WCCF thinks waiting lists would be unfortunate.
The State Budget is an Opportunity to Reduce Income Inequality
Whether Black, Brown, or white, rural or city, we all can thrive when state leaders invest in our children, families, and communities. Tax cuts for the rich are not the path to prosperity and will only make income inequality in Wisconsin worse.
