- Budget would make benefits cuts to Medicaid, W-2, Wisconsin Shares, By Steve Schultze and Rick Romell, March 1, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “About 55,000 people could lose their health insurance under the state’s BadgerCare program, under Gov. Scott Walker’s budget plan released Tuesday. Walker’s budget also would shrink aid to Wisconsin Works participants and could mean reduced state child care subsidies to low-income families. In an effort to slow the growth in spending on Medicaid, Walker says he will seek permission from the federal government to tighten eligibility standards and would cut off people faster who are found no longer eligible. If the federal government does not give the state permission to toughen its standards in determining who gets Medicaid, the state would eliminate coverage to families that earn more than 133% of the federal poverty level on July 1, 2012. That threshold currently is $24,352 a year for a family of three. Wisconsin is among states providing health insurance to adults with children under 19 and household income up to 200% of the poverty line, or $36,620 for a family of three…”
- Advocacy groups decry proposed Medicaid changes, By Guy Boulton, March 1, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Advocacy groups ranging from Disability Rights Wisconsin to Mental Health America of Wisconsin to AARP Wisconsin are opposing Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to give his administration the freedom to revamp BadgerCare Plus and other Medicaid programs with minimal oversight from the Legislature. The provision in Walker’s budget-repair bill would allow the secretary of the Department of Health Services to make sweeping changes in the program with approval from just the Joint Finance Committee instead of the full Legislature. ‘This provision is going to radically change the way decisions are made about Medicaid,’ said Barbara Beckert, the Milwaukee office director for Disability Rights Wisconsin. The Walker administration hasn’t indicated what changes it is considering for the programs, which provide health care for roughly 1 million state residents…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty