Walker Administration Counts on Health Exchange Working Well Next Year, Yet Predicts It Won’t
Last Tuesday at the annual HealthWatch conference, the outbound DHS Secretary, Dennis Smith, expressed strong doubts about whether the federal government can get a health insurance exchange established and running effectively in Wisconsin by next January. Nevertheless, Governor Walker’s budget justifies eliminating BadgerCare coverage for about 89,000 parents and 6,000 childless adults in 2014 on the grounds that those adults can get affordable coverage through the new exchange, which under federal law is supposed to start taking and processing applications in October of this year.
The Wisconsin Hospital Association (WHA) also has doubts about the timetable for effective exchange operation. A March 1 article in the Milwaukee Business Journal reports that, “Association president Steven Brenton has said the likelihood that a functional and consumer-navigable exchange will be up and running on Oct. 1 meets the ‘slim to none’ test.” That isn’t WHA’s only worry about relying on the yet-to-be created exchange to replace BadgerCare for many adults next year. Rich Kirchen of the Business Journal reported that the association’s association executive vice president, Eric Borgerding, told him that:
“The Hospital Association has major concerns about when the exchanges actually will launch, how well they will function and whether they are suited to low-income Wisconsinites.” I think all of those are very legitimate concerns, especially in a state like Wisconsin where the executive branch seems to be making no effort to assist federal officials in the development of a well designed, smoothly implemented exchange. With that in mind, I think the Hospital Association makes a very logical suggestion in asking state lawmakers to delay the Governor’s plan by two or three years.
Kirchen’s article notes that the Association is concerned about potential growth in uncompensated care if low-income adults are shifted out of BadgerCare into an exchange that isn’t operating smoothly or doesn’t meet their needs. WHA is also concerned about the cumulative impact of increasing uninsurance among that population and the new Medicare cuts for hospitals resulting from the sequester.
A preliminary analysis by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau concluded that Wisconsin could save close to $44 million in state funds during the 2013-15 biennium by protecting current BadgerCare coverage of parents through at least 2015, as the Hospital Association suggests, and by covering childless adults up to 133% of the poverty level,
Jon Peacock
