According to a new report, Wisconsin’s hospitals provided $1.2 billion of uncompensated health care services to their patients in fiscal year 2011. That figure increased by about $110 million, or 10.3%, compared to FY 2010.
The large amount of uncompensated care helps illustrate the importance of improving access to quality insurance. BadgerCare has slowed the growth in uncompensated care costs compared to what the increase would have been — during a period when employer-sponsored insurance was dropping sharply and deductibles were growing rapidly.
The importance of BadgerCare in offsetting those trends was less obvious last year than in 2010, when the amount of uncompensated care actually decreased a little, even as the economy was tanking and tens of thousands of Wisconsinites were losing their employer-sponsored insurance. BadgerCare’s effectiveness in countering declining employer coverage was weakened in 2011 by the ongoing moratorium on new enrollment in BadgerCare Core coverage for childless adults. That moratorium has yielded a drop of more than 21,000 people in BadgerCare Core from 2010 to 2011 (based on average monthly participation).
Read more in the Wisconsin Budget Project’s Blog summarizing the Wisconsin Hospital Association report.
Jon Peacock
