Children in Wisconsin are better off than children in 35 other states, according to the new Kids Count Index released yesterday by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. That's the good news.The bad news is that Wisconsin is losing ground to other states in many areas of child-well being. For example, Wisconsin's child poverty rate increased...
Each year, the Annie E. Casey foundation publishes its KIDS COUNT Data Book, a state-by-state collection of indicators measuring the well-being of the nation’s children. We at WCCF try not to get too caught up in these sorts of composite rankings of which states are best for kids, but they can be very useful in monitoring trends within...
Secretary Smith Questions Federal Limits on His Power to Change BadgerCareOne of the many ways that the federal health care reform law is helping people in Wisconsin is by protecting BadgerCare. Because of the law’s stability provision, known as the maintenance of effort (MOE) requirement, federal officials rejected Walker...
That’s the question facing state officials and early childhood advocates this summer.Good NewsHaving just missed getting a Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge grant in 2011, Wisconsin is now one of five states invited to apply for up to $22.7 million, half of the amount the state applied for in 2012. In the 1st round, the nine...
In a Washington Post op-ed today, Governor Walker attacks the federal health care reform law. His column draws selectively from the actuarial report done for the state by MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber, and studiously avoids the report's many findings that shed a positive light on the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In addition, it appears...
For the 33rd Time, House Votes to Repeal All or Part of the ACAThe House of Representatives voted today on repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) – for the 33rd time! No one was exactly on the edge of their seats awaiting the outcome, since the Republican majority voted on 32 previous occasions to repeal or defund all or part of the...
Medicaid Expansion Will Be Important Issue in State-level ElectionsThe Supreme Court’s decision upholding nearly all of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) makes the health care reform law a very important part of the presidential and congressional election campaigns over the coming months. The Court’s decision to strike down one portion of...
The Division of Juvenile Corrections (DJC) has released a report in response to 2011 Act 32 in which they were directed to gather information about juvenile justice expenditures and services throughout Wisconsin, including both expenditures by the DJC as well as by counties, related to intervening in juvenile crime.Variations in how...
The Walker Administration’s changes to BadgerCare take effect today (July 1). Fortunately, because of the “maintenance of effort” requirement in the Affordable Care Act, the changes are much more limited than what the Department of Health Services (DHS) initially proposed. (See our comparative summary of the initial proposal and the...
A quarterly report released late on Friday by the Department of Health Services provides both good and bad news about Wisconsin’s Medicaid budget. At first blush, the numbers look worse than the deficit figures in the last quarterly report, but that’s before the cost-cutting initiatives are taken into account. When those are factored...
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