Posted on 05/10/2019 9:54:50 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
MADISON, Wis. — In castigating Republicans on Thursday for axing Medicaid expansion from Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal, Democrats on the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee showed their hand again.
The massive spending plan is built like a house of cards, with “free” federal Medicaid money as its wobbly foundation.
The Republican-led budget-writing committee voted 11-to-4 to remove 131 “non-fiscal” policy items from the Democratic governor’s $84.2 billion biennial budget proposal, including his plan to expand Medicaid in Wisconsin.
A Legislative Fiscal Bureau analysis estimates extending the low-income poverty eligibility limits would reduce state Medicaid expenditures by $279.4 million over the life of the 2019-21 budget. Federal funding would increase by $792.6 million over the biennium. And Democrats need every penny to sustain the 8.9 percent increase in all-funds spending on the buffet of liberal spending initiatives Evers has proposed.
“This budget is so tightly wound around that string of Medicaid expansion that if you pull that string the whole budget unravels,” state Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton), told his Republican colleagues on the finance committee. Erpenbach called the Medicaid expansion the “motherlode of strings that you can pull.”
Not a good fiscal strategy, committee Republicans countered.
“You are betting the farm on one budget item. If anything goes wrong, you have a serious budget problem,” said Sen. Tom Tiffany (R-Minocqua).
The Democrats’ plan seems simple enough: Using Medicaid funding from a federal government drowning in $22 trillion of debt to pay for Evers’ budget that is estimated to create a $2 billion structural deficit. But it’s free money, the Democrats insist. It’s “our money” just sitting in Washington, D.C., they say, and Republican lawmakers and former Republican Gov. Scott Walker cost the state more than $1 billion by rejecting the federal cash over the past five years.
Rep. Shannon Zimmerman (R-River Falls) warned his finance committee colleagues that there is no such thing as “free money” from the federal government. Democrats fail to acknowledge all the strings attached in the Medicaid expansion string that holds Evers’ budget plan together, he said.
“We disagree with throwing more money at a broken or dysfunctional system. That is not the answer,” Zimmerman said.
Committee Democrats decry the fact that Wisconsin is one of only 14 states that hasn’t taken the additional money. But Republicans say there is good reason to decline.
Medicaid expansion has been a costly proposition for states that have accepted it. Medicaid spending in Ohio, for example, skyrocketed 35 percent in four years – from $18.9 billion to $25.7 billion between fiscal year 2013 and 2017. And in Minnesota, premiums increased 50-67 percent, forcing the state to implement a reinsurance program costing taxpayers at least $800 million so far.
Premiums headed into 2017 were expected to increase by a staggering 50-67 percent, as opposed to Wisconsin’s 16 percent hike. As a result, Minnesota was forced to come up with $300 million to bail out 123,000 struggling Minnesotans who did not qualify for federal Obamacare subsidies.
The bloodletting of Minnesota taxpayers didn’t stop there. The following year, the Minnesota legislature spent an additional $542 million to establish a reinsurance program to hold down costs.
Former Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, in 2016 told reporters, “The reality is the Affordable Care Act is no longer affordable to increasing numbers of people.” But the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, Republicans on the finance committee say, is what the country is stuck with. Still, they prefer Obamacare’s private sector health care exchanges to a government-run insurance program. They point to plans on the market as low as 15 cents a month with a $50 annual deductible, thanks to federal subsidies. Why move consumers on the exchanges to a more costly Medicaid system with its low reimbursement rates when the private marketplace is covering them more efficiently and effectively?
Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) said if a health plan costs mere cents, it’s probably not good. In fact, such plans are offered through Common Ground, the darling of the Obamacare health care cooperatives that taxpayers propped up with tons of subsidized loans and giveaways. JFC Democrats pointed to polling that shows 70 percent of respondents want the state to take the federal money through the Medicaid expansion. They worked in, often clumsily, their new budget battle war cry, that Republicans were pushing the “politician’s budget,” not the “people’s budget,” as Evers calls his spending plan.
Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison) insisted that people from around the state came to JFC budget hearings “begging us to adopt the provisions of this budget.”
Evers’ says Republicans refuse to listen.
“Folks voted for a change in November,” the governor said in a press release following Thursday’s vote. “They want us to bring Wisconsin’s federal tax dollars back into our state to invest in healthcare for all Wisconsinites and they want to see Democrats and Republicans work together to get it done.”
Evers said he has not yet begun to fight, having previously indicated that he would veto any budget that didn’t include the Medicaid expansion. Rejecting the federal Medicaid money would punch a $1.4 billion hole in Evers’ proposed budget, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. That analysis, however, exposes how fragile Evers’ plan is, and disregards the fact that fiscally conservative budgeting could quickly fill that hole by prioritizing truly necessary spending initiatives.
Republicans said they want the same things their colleagues on the other side of the aisle want – accessible, affordable health care for all. They just believe in a different way of getting there. Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said Democrats want the people of Wisconsin to believe the only way to have affordable, accessible health care “is to have it be a welfare program, to be government-run, to have the taxpayers pay for it all.”
Evers’ proposal to increase taxes on manufacturers and retirees
Elimination of the special needs scholarship program, as well as a freeze on independent charter schools and an enrollment cap on school choice programs
Provisions on legalizing medical marijuana and decriminalizing “small amounts” of marijuana possession and sales
Proposed gradual minimum wage hikes
Drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants
Creation of the Office of Sustainability and Clean Energy
Automatic voter registration
Statewide carbon-free energy goal
Additional resources for do-little Wisconsin Treasurer’s and Secretary of State offices
A plan to lift a prohibition on taking private land for government bike trail projects
More Insider Baseball, but I’m warning you - if Wisconsin didn’t keep Her Senate and Assembly in Republican hands, We The People of Wisconsin would be taking it in the SHORTS for the next 4 years, and beyond!
Governor Walker (R, WI) did an EXCELLENT job in slashing our debt and getting us on a good fiscal footing again.
WHY do ‘Rats always need to ruin things? Evers is SUCH a dope! You have an AWESOME economy, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs and growth and NO DEBT! WFT? Do the right thing and ride it, ya dumb@ss!
Democrats just CANNOT help themselves, can they? Yeesh!
How long until you can recall this fraud from office ?
I wish!
CONSERVATIVE Wisconsinites are too polite and too fiscally responsible. When WI members of the Socialist Democrat Party tried to recall Governor Walker, it cost our state MILLIONS, and every little berg and hamlet was effected. It was awful.
And, of course, the Union Thugs and the ‘You Can’t Touch Us!’ Teachers trashed our State Capitol and grounds and then there was the ‘flight’ to IL by Dems CONGRESSPEOPLE to avoid voting on Act 10, etc. (PUBLIC Union busting, basically.)
Republicans wouldn’t repeat those days for anything, and I agree. We need to keep the high ground and just thwart this man, who is in WAY over his pointy head, at every turn.
That’s enough for most of us. ;)
It’ll be an uneventful four years though with a LOT of blustering and hot air on Evers’ part, and then we’ll be rid of him. :)
Our goal for now needs to be maintaining our majorities in the House and the Assembly, which should be do-able. :)
I see your point, but I also think taking the war to them and doubling-down on their tactics to use against them is in order. Politeness doesn’t win wars. Just imagine had Trump not been the 2016 nominee.
Perish the thought of no PDJT! *SHUDDER* :)
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