Back in October 2011, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) estimated that the state was facing a shortfall in the budget for Medicaid and BadgerCare of about $550 million during the 2011-13 biennium: almost $220 million in state General Purpose Revenue (GPR) and $330 million of matching federal funds. Since then, the size of the projected deficit has fallen by more than 60 percent, without accounting for the newer cost-saving measures. This short paper provides a summary of the evolving deficit estimate and offers several options for closing that shortfall.
BadgerCare Expansion Won’t Go Away – It’s Too Good a Deal
Republican legislators would like to kill off the idea of expanding BadgerCare eligibility by removing it from the Wisconsin budget, but it won’t go away that easily. It will keep coming back because the case for expansion is so compelling. Most significant budget...