Governor Walker and the Department of Health Services (DHS) released data today relating to BadgerCare enrollment in April.  According to the Governor’s press release, the state was serving an additional 81,731 childless adults below the poverty level in April, but 62,776 people with income above the poverty level lost their BadgerCare eligibility. You can find the county-level DHS figures on increased childless enrollment here.

Although we are pleased that there was a significant net upturn in BadgerCare enrollment in April, that increase only gets BadgerCare participation back to where it was in June 2012.  More importantly, we could be covering far more people at substantially less cost by accepting the enhanced federal funding available through the Affordable Care Act. That policy option would cover 85,000 more adults in BadgerCare, while saving an estimated $119 million for state taxpayers in the 2013-15 budget period.

Here are a few pertinent facts derived from my analysis of the figures on the usual DHS data portal:

• Total BadgerCare enrollment grew by about 34,000 people in April, after significant declines over the previous year.
• Despite the significant net increase in April, total BadgerCare participation was still a little below the level in June 2012, before the state made a number of policy changes that adversely affected families over 133% of the poverty level.
• The number of children participating in BadgerCare declined by 2,250 in April and is down by almost 5,000 since last September.

With the expanded coverage of childless adults in April, our hope is that Wisconsin has now made a significant dent in the number of uninsured people in the state. However, it is too soon to be able to figure out the combined effects of reduced participation of parents and children in BadgerCare, significantly improved coverage of childless adults, and the enrollment of nearly 140,000 people in Marketplace insurance plans. I think we need at least a couple more months of data to begin to get a sense of whether the state is on track to achieve the Governor’s target of reducing the number of uninsured Wisconsinites by nearly 250,000.

Jon Peacock