MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Republican-controlled state budget committee voted Thursday to approve about $225 million in Medicaid cuts expected to result in about 65,000 poor adults and children leaving health insurance programs, either because they would no longer be eligible or they could no longer afford coverage.
Democrats on the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee voted against the proposal from Republican Gov. Scott Walker's administration, which along with other measures would come to about $554 million in cuts. Opponents, including advocates for the poor and uninsured, railed against the Medicaid cuts, calling them unjust and inhumane.
"The Republicans are waging a campaign against social justice and the enemy appears to be working-class families who are struggling to make ends meet," said Sen. Bob Jauch, D-Poplar.
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Republicans on the committee who backed the measure, along with leaders from Walker's Department of Health Services, said the cuts were necessary to deal with rising costs and expanding enrollment in the Medicaid programs. Those programs, which currently cover about 1.1 million people, or 20 percent of Wisconsin residents, have grown by nearly 10 times the rate of the state's population during the past two decades, driven both by need and expanded program offerings.
Not doing what Walker proposed could result in even more people losing coverage or having their eligibility cut, backers of the plan said.
"I think all of us wish we could do more, but the money just isn't there," said committee co-chair Rep. Robin Vos, R-Caledonia.
The plan now heads to President Barack Obama's administration, which must sign off on about half of the total cuts.
The Department of Health Services plan would shift more than 200,000 families enrolled in BadgerCare Plus into cheaper programs with reduced benefits. The plan also requires families to pay a 5 percent premium if they make more than 150 percent of the federal poverty level and forces people off the program if they have access to affordable insurance through their employer. Young adults with access to coverage through their parents also would be removed.
Advocates argued against the changes, saying they will remove a safety net for the state's neediest people and force them to live without health insurance.
"People forget that there are names, faces, real people affected by these cuts," said Sara Finger, executive director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Women's Health.
Walker's administration isn't making Medicaid a priority and its changes will simply shift costs to the private sector and families who can't afford it, said Robert Kraig, executive director of Citizen Action Wisconsin.
"Wisconsin needs jobs and not cuts to programs that help us stay on our feet," said Heather DuBois of Sun Prairie, who said she was on BadgerCare when she was pursuing her doctorate degree and her husband was unemployed.
The changes as proposed will result in about 65,000 people, including 29,000 children, leaving the program, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. About 28,000 of them are people who would be removed from the program if they have access to employer-sponsored plans that require a contribution of less than 9.5 percent of their household income.
Another 19,000 people, about 12,000 of them children, are expected to leave the program under a change that requires families to pay a 5 percent premium if their income is 150 percent or more above the federal poverty level. A parent with two children would have to pay $116 a month. State employees in a comparable plan have to pay $201 a month starting next year, according to DHS.
About 2,800 young adults between the ages of 19 and 26 would be forced to join their parents' health insurance plans.
Health Services Secretary Dennis Smith defended the changes, calling them reforms that will put Medicaid programs on stronger footing.
"What we are trying to do is bring Medicaid into the modern era," he told the committee.
Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, said opposition to the plan was not as great as she anticipated largely because it doesn't make any changes to programs for the disabled or SeniorCare, the popular prescription drug program for the elderly.
"When you have changes, there is fear and anxiety and that's to be expected," she said.
If the federal waiver is not granted, the state plans to tighten income eligibility requirements from 200 percent of the federal poverty level to 133 percent. That would force more than 50,000 more people out of the program.
Currently, a family of three earning up to $37,060 is eligible. Without the waiver, the cutoff would drop to $24,645 for the same family.
Federal health officials announced last month that they would not reimburse $45 million in Wisconsin Medicaid expenses that Walker's administration was counting on. The reduction package doesn't address that shortfall. Vos said that will be addressed later.
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