The federal government announced today that it is awarding Wisconsin a 2013 bonus of $13.9 million for the state’s success in improving children’s access to health care through the BadgerCare program.  The Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 authorized performance bonus payments that pick up a larger share of the costs for states that are successful in cutting red tape and reducing administrative hurdles to enroll significantly more uninsured children in their Medicaid programs.

Wisconsin is one of 23 states notified today that they will be receiving performance bonus funding this year.   Based on the preliminary figures for the bonuses, a total of $307 million is being awarded to the qualifying states for 2013.

This is the fifth and final year of federal performance bonus awards.  Wisconsin did not qualify for a bonus in 2009, but the state made a number of changes in 2010 to improve the BadgerCare Plus renewal process and reduce red tape.  Those changes, coupled with simplifications initiated in 2008 and enrollment growth since 2007, made the state eligible for bonus payments in each of the last four years.  (Click here to see the performance bonuses for each state in each year.)

This year’s award is $3.2 million less than the state received for 2012, but it’s $3.4 million above the amount of bonus funding that state legislators budgeted to support Medicaid benefits costs in 2013-14.  In the past couple of years the state has lapsed all or most of the performance bonus to the General Fund.  I suspect the additional $3.4 million from the 2013 bonus is likely to used to reduce a $92.6 million deficit in the 2013-15 Medicaid budget.

Jon Peacock