Medicaid Expansion is on the chopping block as the legislature’s Joint Finance Committee begins meeting in executive session on the Governor’s proposed biennial budget. This threatens the well-being of the estimated 82,000 additional adults who could be covered by BadgerCare. It also throws a lot of Wisconsin taxpayer dollars away.
Contact your State Legislators
The proposed budget, with Medicaid Expansion, uses $324 million in savings over the biennium to provide desperately needed funding for such items as:
- Inspectors for assisted living facilities;
- Nursing educators and dental therapist training;
- Support to protect the rights of long term care consumers;
- A Healthy Women/Healthy Babies Initiative to address racial disparities in children's and maternal health;
- Improving lead abatement and access to treatment for children exposed to lead, including $1 million for children in families that are not eligible for Medicaid.
Wisconsin taxpayers have been sending money to Washington for Medicaid Expansion for several years, but for ideological reasons our state government has consistently turned down the opportunity to get those federal dollars back. It is high time that Wisconsin accept the available federal Medicaid funding and apply it to improving healthcare right here in our state
Contact your State Senator and Assembly Representative today and tell them that Medicaid Expansion will help keep healthcare costs down, and it will return significant federal tax dollars to our state. It is an obvious win-win for Wisconsin, and it should be retained in the state budget.
Read the May 2 LWVWI Press Release in support of full Medicaid Expansion.
