Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers is trying a new strategy to expand Medicaid in the state.
Evers announced a new push to get more people enrolled in BadgerCare or, have them buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act website. He calls those the first steps toward getting more Wisconsin residents covered. I
n an interview with WXPR recently, a Republican member of the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, Senator Tom Tiffany, said they feel the matter would long term come back to backfire on taxpayers.
But a fellow Senator and Democrat on the same committee, Jon Erpenbach of the Madison area, says majority Republicans extracted Medicaid expansion from the budget.
Erpenbach gives some numbers..
"...If you make up to 100 percent of federal poverty level, which is about $7.50 cents an hour, you are eligible for Medicaid programs like BadgerCare, but if you make a penny more than that, you are not. What Medicaid expansion would do is take that up to about 138 percent of federal poverty level. It would cover someone making $9 or $10 an hour, somewhere in there..."
Erpenbach says what's coming back is money that already has been sent to the federal government....
"...As a result, some of these programs are going to operate and we're going to be taking state tax dollars to pay for it. So Wisconsinites are going to be paying twice for something they only get once..."
Erpenbach says polls have shown a majority Wisconsin residents favor the expansion and thinks if enough public pressure is applied, it could have an impact. He says Tony Evers ran for governor with Medicaid expansion as a key component and won the race with it as a key issue.
