With the strike of a gavel in both houses, Republicans in the Assembly and Senate in a matter of seconds on Tuesday swiftly dismissed Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ call to expand the state’s Medicaid program with little indication of how they plan to replace the promised additional federal revenue in the state budget.
Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, in the Senate, and Reps. Mike Kuglitsch, R-New Berlin, and Kevin Peterson, R-Waupaca, in the Assembly convened and adjourned the governor’s special session within seconds around 1 p.m. Tuesday, representing another one of several occasions when Republican lawmakers rejected outright the governor’s call to convene to take up special legislation expanding BadgerCare, the state’s public health care program for low-income people funded by both the state and federal governments.
Evers’ special session legislation also would have directed a large portion of the $1 billion in one-time federal funds the state would receive if it expanded Medicaid to economic development projects.
In an interview, Kapenga gave little indication of how Republicans are shaping this year’s Medicaid budget, but said GOP lawmakers should work to get more people off the state’s BadgerCare rolls by incentivizing them to work rather than expanding eligibility for the program.
“There are currently a lot of people on Medicaid who don’t need it,” Kapenga said. “Let’s get people working, let’s get people into the job market. We’ve got employers who are screaming for people right now.”
Kapenga gave little indication which of Evers’ economic development programs, if any, he’d like to see funded through the state budget, but said that Republicans do support expanding broadband.
He said unemployment bonuses and federal stimulus checks are preventing many people from coming back to work, a notion Democrats deny.
“They’re throwing 90,000 Wisconsinites under the bus who need access to health care, and they are thumbing their nose to $1 billion that rightfully belongs here in Wisconsin,” said Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-West Point.
Kapenga said Republicans continue to oppose Medicaid expansion because Wisconsinites under the poverty level are already covered, and they fear the federal government will reduce the amount of Medicaid reimbursement funds over time.
“There’s going to be a reckoning with all this spending,” Kapenga said. “It has to be paid back. It’s really a ploy to try to get states to get to pull into the system, they want to suck them into the system, and then over time, it’s a win for the federal government because they reduce their reimbursement rates and they start saving money.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, and budget committee co-chairpersons Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, and Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, sent a letter to Evers outlining why they oppose expansion of BadgerCare. They said it would put more people on a taxpayer-funded program and would make private plans more expensive.
Marklein and Born didn’t respond to interview requests.
GOP leaders also said they prefer the state’s current framework, which allows some low-income people above the poverty level to enroll in private insurance heavily subsidized by the federal government. The framework, they said, eliminates gaps in health care coverage and doesn’t add a cost for state taxpayers, unlike the governor’s proposal, which would require some state funds, although it would save a significant amount of money in the next two-year budget overall.
Expanded eligibility
The governor’s proposal would have moved childless, working-aged adults earning up to 138% of the poverty level onto BadgerCare, people who are currently eligible for subsidized coverage through the federal exchange. That would increase the income eligibility for a single person from $12,880 a year to $17,774.
Evers has said expanding Medicaid eligibility would save the state by tapping additional federal funds and cover an estimated 90,000 additional people while expanding benefits such as addiction treatment and enabling more payments to providers such as hospitals and nursing homes.
“We have $1 billion of no-strings attached money as an incentive knowing that COVID recovery is so important,” Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, said at a news conference. He said the Medicaid funding is now baked into the federal budget, which he said should assuage Republican concerns that the funding pool might dry up.
Evers knocked Republicans for gaveling out of the special session.
“It’s breathtaking that after a year of working to prevent us from responding to COVID-19, Republicans would rather keep playing politics with our economic recovery than invest $1 billion into our state’s economy and support communities in their own districts,” Evers said. “I think we should be doing everything we can to make sure our economy bounces back from this pandemic, and this special session was about finding common ground and getting bipartisan support for our efforts.”
Development projects
While the governor has the authority to call lawmakers to convene over an issue, legislators don’t have to pass anything. Last week, Evers called lawmakers into session to expand Medicaid access in the state to cover an additional 91,000 residents and use a large chunk of the $1 billion in one-time federal funds that would come with expansion toward economic development projects across Wisconsin.
Republicans, however, have remained opposed to expansion despite an additional $1 billion in one-time federal incentives in the latest stimulus package and Evers’ efforts to sweeten the pot. Evers’ proposal would have directed the savings from Medicaid expansion into Wisconsin’s economic recovery and more than 50 projects and economic development initiatives across the state. It would also add $151 million to the state’s rainy day fund.
All told, Evers proposed putting an estimated $850 million in Medicaid expansion dollars to a list of projects, including $200 million in funding for broadband expansion, $100 million to help replace lead service lines for private users of public water systems, and $100 million to local governments for road and other infrastructure improvement.
Other items in the legislation include: $50 million in veteran housing grants; $10 million to provide assistance to communities affected by PFAS; $2.7 million to establish and maintain an opioid and meth data system; and $11 million to support rural Emergency Medical Services.